Ireland is set to put the first concrete numbers on the table in one of the EU’s most bruising political fights, with a draft seven-year budget to be presented on Saturday and circulated to leaders ahead of next week’s summit in Brussels, RTÉ News understands.
The long-anticipated document will be unveiled by Minister of State for European Affairs Thomas Byrne at a Brussels news conference.
Negotiating the next EU budget has become the defining test of Ireland’s EU presidency, as member states split into two increasingly entrenched camps: net contributors pressing for a smaller package that prioritises competitiveness and defence, and others determined to protect traditional pillars such as agriculture and cohesion funding.
At the centre of the process is the so-called Negotiation Box — a working draft that sets the overall budget figure and proposes detailed spending ceilings that governments are expected to dispute and reshape over the coming months. Irish officials, ministers and Taoiseach Micheál Martin have spent weeks sounding out national capitals on their red lines, culminating in the text due to be presented.
European Council President Antonio Costa, who chairs EU summits, has also been travelling to capitals as the talks intensify.
Yet even with that heavy diplomatic push, positions on both sides have hardened in recent days.
The starting point remains the European Commission’s proposal from July 2025, which envisioned a seven-year budget of €1.9 trillion.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin will sign off on the draft before its presentation on Saturday
But the so-called frugal member states — Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Finland and Sweden — moved to apply pressure in a letter to the Irish government dated September 29, insisting that “several hundred billion” be cut from that headline figure by the time the Negotiation Box reaches leaders.
The signatories, including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, argued that their six countries provide almost 40% of all member states’ contributions to the budget, which will cover 2028-2034.
“While net contributors as a whole are in the minority they shoulder around three quarters of the total financing burden,” they wrote.
“It is about political priorities and about whether we can achieve the goal we have jointly set ourselves: a strong and sovereign Europe in an uncertain world,” the letter stated.
“To achieve this, the MFF must be fundamentally reformed. We must make choices.”
On a different front, 17 EU leaders from the Friends of Cohesion group have appealed directly to the Taoiseach, urging him to weigh the significance of cohesion and farm supports as negotiations begin in earnest.
The letter, seen by RTÉ News, said “Cohesion Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy are long-standing policies, but their objectives are as relevant as ever.
“They promote convergence between Member States and regions, strengthen the Single Market and support rural, less developed areas.
“They also contribute to Europe’s competitiveness and food security, while providing tangible support to millions of European citizens and demonstrating the added value of common European spending.”
Mr Martin, who will sign off on the draft before Saturday’s presentation, has acknowledged that bridging the gap between the competing blocs will be extremely difficult.
The European Parliament will also have to agree some 21 pieces of legislation next year
Dublin’s stated goal is to secure broad agreement among national capitals by the end of Ireland’s presidency in December.
Politically, officials see momentum this year as critical: a run of general elections next year could reshape governments across Europe and potentially return hard-right and eurosceptic parties to power, complicating the path to consensus.
Even if governments converge on the main figures, the European Parliament must still sign off on about 21 pieces of legislation next year to ensure EU money can reach recipients — including farmers — from 1 January 2028.
Those negotiations are also being shaped by changes to the budget’s architecture, with the Common Agriculture Policy now folded into National Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs).
Under that structure, the NRPPs will cover direct payments and rural development funding, offering national capitals greater freedom in how money is distributed, but with a smaller share of CAP spending protected by ring-fencing.
CAP support will also hinge on compliance with a set of conditions applying to the NRPP as a whole.
The Friends of Cohesion letter argues that total cohesion and CAP allocations “must be preserved in the next [seven-year budget].”
It adds that “these policies already face reductions in real terms under the [European] Commission’s proposal, despite the overall increase in the size of the [budget].
“Reducing them further would not modernise the EU budget; it would only weaken it and risk undermining public support for the European project.”
Ireland’s draft Negotiation Box is also expected to outline which potential new revenue sources to fund the budget could command majority political support among member states.
These so-called New Own Resources are viewed as options to increase the budget’s capacity and to help repay debt linked to the EU’s post-Covid recovery fund.
They include ideas such as a levy on large corporations, taxes on gambling and tobacco, a levy on cryptocurrencies and potential funds clawed back from the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS).
Germany and other countries, however, have rejected joint EU borrowing as a mechanism to cover the costs of a larger EU budget.
