Committee on Budgets Ordinary meeting
3 June 2026
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BUDG European Parliament
Follow its sittings00:03 - 04:11
Speaker 1
So, dear colleagues, may I warmly welcome you, running from one meeting to the next one today. So now I have the honor to chair this meeting of the public hearing on NRPPs and lessons from the RRF delivery model, long-term EU resilience and social cohesion in the context of demographic challenges. Dear colleagues, let's open our public hearing. The Commission presented its proposals for the MFF 2028 to 2034 financial package on the 16th of July 2025. The proposal introduces the National and Regional Partnership Plans along with a new delivery architecture building on experience gained from the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility, in particular with regard to performance-based financing and integrated horizontal budgetary mechanisms such as conditionalities and flexibilities.
The policy objectives to be supported under the next MFF include economic resilience, social cohesion, and the capacity to address structural challenges such as demographic change. In this context, it is important to assess how the governance and budgetary design of the NRPPs can help ensure predictability of investment while preserving an appropriate degree of flexibility. To discuss these issues, I am pleased to welcome our six excellent speakers. On the first panel dedicated to conditionalities, the RRF and the lessons for the NRPPs delivery model, we will hear Ms. Ivana Maletić, very experienced member of the European Court of Auditors, welcome to the whole team. Ms. Lívia Vašáková, former Deputy Prime Minister of Slovakia responsible for the Recovery and Resilience Plan.
On the second panel dedicated to the balance between flexibility, predictability and their link with long-term investments, we will hear Ms. Odilia van der Valk, research associate at European Policies Research Centre, and Mr. Guntram Wolff, professor of economics at Université Libre de Bruxelles and senior fellow at Bruegel. On the third panel dedicated to examples highlighting the need for predictability such as demographic change and social cohesion, we will hear Mr. Arnstein Aassve, professor of demography at Università Bocconi, Mr. Benedikt Wauters, director at Europa WSE. The NRPPs is a joint file and therefore I am happy to welcome members of REGI and AGRI committees with whom we are working closely on the matter. I am also very happy to welcome members from the CONT, ECON, EMPL and LIBE committees as they are here and we welcome their contributions to this event.
Allow me to set a few housekeeping rules. This hearing will be structured in three panels. For each of them, we will hear first from each expert for around 10 minutes before holding a Q&A session, during which I will invite one BUDG member per political group, as well as one speaker from the competent invited committees to ask questions if time allows. I will proceed to a catch-the-eye, after which we will then hear from the experts again on their replies. So, now let's start.
Before opening this hearing, I would like to give the floor for some introductory remarks to Mr. Ressler, Karlo, our BUDG rapporteur for NRPPs, who presented together with his co-rapporteurs his draft report this morning in a joint BUDG-REGI-AGRI committee meeting. Karlo, you have the floor.
04:11 - 07:56
Speaker 3
Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, dear colleagues, dear panelists, ladies and gentlemen. It is definitely a pleasure from my side as well to welcome you to today's hearing on the future of the national and regional partnership plans, and a special thanks to all the distinguished speakers for accepting our invitation and for contributing to this important discussion. As we have seen already, as you mentioned this morning, the proposal that is currently on the table is definitely not just some kind of a small technical fine-tuning of a budgetary instrument, but it will definitely fundamentally reshape the way a significant share, almost one half of the European budget, is planned, implemented, and then also monitored over the next decade. As you know, also on the political level, this is one of the most complex, politically delicate files of the next MFF and will decide the rules on how we use this almost half of the entire budget.
This is why this discussion is important, but I think that this morning we have seen why this discussion is so complex, and it comes at a quite important moment when the Parliament is shaping our own position on the regulation and working to best understand its effects. So, as legislators, we have now proposed this draft report. Now we are in the coming to the amendments phase, and we are not only examining a new governance model, but we are also trying to answer a number of fundamental questions. And I think that one of those questions has definitely been in the previous years: what lessons should we draw from the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility? How do we really strike the right balance between flexibility and predictability?
How do we ensure on one side national ownership, but also at the same time real European priorities? And how do we guarantee long-term investments in a period which is marked by so many problems and challenges, including also demographic change that will be discussed today as well, growing security challenges, and increasing pressures on public finances? So, I think that these all these questions are particularly relevant as we are entering into this phase of the amendments. And I think that the input we receive today will surely inform our work within our committee, but also together with the colleagues from REGI, from AGRI, but also the other committees, and help us to ensure that the new delivery model is flexible, yes, but also at the same time reliable and capable of delivering real results for citizens, for regions, and for our member states. So, I'm really pleased that we can hear today from distinguished experts with practical experience in implementing reforms and investments, analyzing public policies, and studying long-term demographic trends.
The task that we have is a quite demanding one. It will not be an easy one. We do not have any illusions about this. But I think that the expertise that we will get today will be invaluable as Parliament develops its position on the important file.
I will stop here and looking forward to the discussions.
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