site.btaEuropean Parliament Adopts EU Budget for 2026

The European Parliament on Thursday approved the European Union’s budget for 2026, setting allocated funds at EUR 192.77 billion and payments at EUR 190.1 billion, including funding from special instruments. The budget was adopted with 419 votes in favour, 185 against and 53 abstentions. Once formally endorsed, it will enter into force on January 1, 2026.

For 2026, the EU will have EUR 192.77 billion available for allocated funds, a decrease of 3.3% compared to the 2025 budget. A total of EUR 715.7 million is earmarked for unforeseen expenditure.

Parliament secured an additional EUR 372.7 million for key priority programmes compared to the European Commission’s draft. The increases include humanitarian aid (EUR 35 million), Horizon Europe (EUR 20 million), the Border Management and Visa Instrument (EUR 10 million), the EU Civil Protection Mechanism (EUR 10 million), the LIFE programme (EUR 10 million), military mobility (EUR 10 million), EU4Health (EUR 3 million) and Erasmus+ (EUR 3 million).

The Connecting Europe Facility receives an additional EUR 23.5 million, EUR 15 million for energy projects and EUR 8.5 million for transport. The Global Europe instrument is increased by EUR 60 million, of which EUR 35 million is allocated to the EU’s Southern partner countries and EUR 25 million to the EU’s Eastern partner countries.

For 2026, the Flexibility Instrument will mobilize over EUR 2.04 billion, distributed among Subheading 2b "Resilience and Values" (EUR 2.01 billion), Heading 7 "European Public Administration" (EUR 23.3 million), Heading 5 "Security and Defence" (EUR 3.5 million) and Subheading 2a "Economic, Social and Territorial Cohesion" (EUR 1 million).

Following the announcement of the vote result, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola signed the document. She was with the two rapporteurs Andrzej Halicki (EPP, Poland), lead rapporteur for Section III (Commission), and Matjaz Nemec (S&D, Slovenia), rapporteur for the remaining sections.