Council negotiating box: a reprieve for humanitarian action, but deep cuts to EU external action

12 October 2026

On Saturday 10 October, the Irish Presidency of the Council published its negotiating box with figures for the EU’s next long-term budget (MFF 2028-2034).

Humanitarian action: figure maintained, future uncertain

The box appears to maintain the €25 billion for humanitarian aid (in current prices) proposed by the Commission. VOICE welcomes this signal. It recognises that humanitarian needs are at a record level.

However, the figure is not secured. Several Member States are pushing for deeper cuts to the overall budget, and humanitarian action could come under pressure in later negotiations. A smaller Global Europe envelope also means less room for development and crisis response, which makes humanitarian needs not only harder to meet but likely to increase.

External action takes a disproportionate share of the cuts

According to the document, the proposed overall MFF is around 8% lower than the Commission’s initial proposal. The cuts are not evenly spread. The Global Europe heading that finances EU's external action, would lose around €38 billion compared with the Commission’s proposal.

Humanitarian assistance cannot be considered in isolation from the rest of external action. Humanitarian needs are increasingly driven by protracted crises, conflict, and fragility. When development and peace funding shrinks, needs grow, and humanitarian action needs to do more with the same budget.

What VOICE calls for:

Maintaining the €200 billion envelope for Global Europe so the EU can respond to growing crises in challenging geopolitical times, with humanitarian, development and peace action working together.

Keeping the €25 billion as a guaranteed a minimum and not a ceiling, as already put forward in the position developed in the European Parliament.

Protecting the emerging challenges and priorities cushion, with humanitarian needs explicitly listed as its first purpose.

Preserving humanitarian assistance as needs-based, principled, and not as a tool serving other EU priorities.

Next steps

VOICE will continue to follow the discussions and to work with Member States, MEPs and the Commission to protect principled humanitarian assistance in the final agreement.

Brussels, 12 October 2026