Romania and Italy rally 17 EU member states to keep cohesion and agriculture at the heart of the next EU budget

BUCHAREST, October 3, 2026 — Romanian President Nicușor Dan and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni have brought together 17 EU member states within the Friends of Cohesion Group, calling for agriculture and cohesion to remain central priorities in the European Union’s next long-term budget.

In a message published on social media on Saturday, President Nicușor Dan said that the 17 member states had rallied around a common objective ahead of the next stages of negotiations on the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2028–2034.

“Together with the Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, we brought together 17 EU member states from the ‘Friends of Cohesion’ Group around a common goal: keeping agriculture and cohesion as central priorities in the next European budget,” President Dan said.

The 17 countries have sent a joint letter to Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, whose country holds the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union, outlining their position ahead of the upcoming MFF negotiations.

According to President Dan, the signatories are seeking to maintain the overall level of funding for Cohesion Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy, while also allocating additional resources to strategic priorities including security and defence, competitiveness, connectivity, energy security and resilience.

“At the same time, we reaffirm our readiness to work constructively on new own resources, which could alleviate pressure on national budgets,” Dan added.

The initiative comes as EU member states continue discussions on the Union’s next seven-year financial framework. The Friends of Cohesion Group has previously coordinated its position around the need to preserve adequate funding for cohesion and agriculture while ensuring that the EU budget can also respond to emerging strategic challenges. In June, Nicușor Dan and Giorgia Meloni organised the first coordination meeting of the group at leaders’ level.

The Friends of Cohesion currently brings together 17 EU member states, including Romania and Italy, which have been coordinating efforts to maintain cohesion and agricultural funding during the negotiations on the 2028–2034 EU budget.

The Romanian President has previously argued that the future EU budget should provide consistent resources for cohesion and agriculture, while also strengthening the competitiveness of less-developed European economies and ensuring companies in countries such as Romania have access to competitiveness funding.

The negotiations over the 2028–2034 Multiannual Financial Framework are expected to remain a key issue on the European agenda as member states seek to balance traditional EU policies with growing demands in areas such as security, defence, competitiveness and energy resilience.