The National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs) are among the key new features of the EU budget for 2028–2034. With the first positions emerging from the ongoing MFF negotiations, it is worth taking a closer look at how this new funding model is intended to work.

The NRPPs are set to fundamentally reshape the structure of EU funding from 2028 onwards. Instead of a large number of separate programmes and funds, each Member State will draw up a strategic partnership plan bringing together investments, reforms and funding priorities. Among other areas, cohesion policy, the Common Agricultural Policy, fisheries, migration and internal security will be brought under the same framework. The plans are to be developed jointly with the European Commission and with the involvement of regional and local actors. The aim is to reduce administrative fragmentation and make EU funding more responsive to national and regional needs. At the same time, funding will be linked to the achievement of agreed objectives and the implementation of reforms.

The new structure will also change where and how funding priorities are determined. Member States will have greater flexibility to tailor funding to their specific national and regional needs. However, this is also a key point of criticism: The greater the scope for national decision-making, the more strongly national political priorities may influence how EU funds are used. This could pose challenges, especially when it comes to long-term European objectives and initiatives with cross-border added value.

This development is particularly relevant for regional and cross-border objectives. Climate and nature protection, biodiversity and water management, as well as many aspects of mobility, cannot be effectively planned along national borders. The European Committee of the Regions and the European Parliament therefore call for regional involvement and the European added value of EU funding to be safeguarded under the new model. While Interreg is still set to remain a dedicated funding instrument, questions remain as to what role territorial cooperation will play in an overall funding architecture that is increasingly structured at national level.

The debate around the NRPPs therefore highlights a fundamental tension at the heart of the new MFF: The EU aims to simplify its funding structures and make them more flexible, while at the same time ensuring that greater national flexibility does not come at the expense of shared European, regional and cross-border priorities. How much flexibility Member States will have, how strongly regional involvement will be anchored and which European priorities will be safeguarded will therefore be important questions in the next stages of the MFF negotiations.