The EU core executive and the EU multiannual budget

The European Union (EU) budget is at the heart of the European integration process. Behind its figures and numbers, it conceals political conflicts in which sectoral, national, and inter-institutional cleavages converge. Given its centrality, the EU budget has received surprisingly little attention in the literature. The latest developments in European fiscal governance show the greater political proximity between the European Commission and the European Council. While existing literature attributes this change to crisis management, this paper argues that it is rooted in a longer and deeper process of institutional transformation. Commission presidents have progressively increased their reliance on the political backing of the European Council in conjunction to the formulation and negotiations of multiannual budgets. The European Council emerged as a suitable arena for the Commission presidency to project political power and assert its relevance. This is consistent with findings on the emergence of the EU core executive, of which both the European Council and the Commission presidency are members, in response to major cross-sectoral policy challenges (Puetter and Terranova 2025: 21). EU multiannual budgets do not constitute a challenge in the real sense of the word. However, their cross-sectoral nature undoubtedly demands a high level of coordination. The paper investigates this evolution through a longitudinal qualitative comparative analysis of seven EU multiannual budgets, from the Financial Perspective 1988-1992 to the Multiannual Financial Framework 2028-2034.