The next MFF should institutionalise what mission governance has proven

The Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) is the European Union’s seven-year budget, providing the financial and governance framework through which the EU delivers its strategic priorities across Member States. It includes Horizon Europe and the EU missions. The proposed Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2028-2034 represents the most significant reform of the EU budget in decades: by consolidating programmes from 7 headings into 4 and reducing the number of programmes from 52 to 16, it seeks to simplify delivery while increasing strategic coherence. 

Whether these reforms succeed will depend less on financial architecture and more on sufficient and effective multilevel governance. The experience of the Cities Mission demonstrates that cities contribute most effectively when they participate not only in implementation but also in policy design — a lesson the next MFF should embed structurally. Without explicit urban safeguards, cities risk being relegated from co-creators of EU policy to implementers of nationally determined priorities. 

The increased emphasis on National Regional Partnership Plans, without dedicated urban provisions, risks weakening city participation precisely when European competitiveness, resilience, and climate neutrality depend most heavily upon local implementation. Given that around 70% of EU legislation is implemented at the regional and local level, marginalising cities from policy design is likely to slow delivery rather than accelerate it. Consolidation itself is not the problem — it can reduce overlap and sharpen strategic focus, but only if paired with the governance rigour, ambition, and independent evaluation that the current proposal still lacks.

The key question, therefore, is how effectively the next MFF enables national, regional, and local actors to align and deliver shared policy objectives, within and across national borders. Financial consolidation alone will not be sufficient: without governance mechanisms that give local and regional actors a genuine seat at the table, simplification risks becoming centralisation by another name. Even the European Parliament has echoed this concern, arguing that a single national plan per Member State cannot serve as the basis for shared management spending post-2027.

To leverage the full potential of multilevel governance, the next MFF should: 

1. Embed Urban Chapters in National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs)

Each NRPP should include a dedicated Urban Chapter setting out how cities contribute to national and European priorities. These chapters should: define urban reform and investment priorities aligned with competitiveness, cohesion, and the green and digital transitions; specify how cities are involved from the outset of plan preparation, not only in implementation; clarify governance and financing arrangements for integrated urban development; and build on proven approaches such as the Climate City Contracts, piloted through the Cities Mission. Crucially, these provisions must be sufficiently binding; a chapter that exists solely on paper but carries no procedural weight will not deliver the effective participation cities — and the EU — need.

2. Ensure cities are included in Pillar 2 and integrated across all four policy windows of the European Competitiveness Fund

The ECF should recognise cities as key implementation partners across all policy windows, linking support to Climate City Contracts and Climate Investment Plans as investment-ready, multi-sectoral pipelines. Building on the Cities Mission, the ECF should enable integrated urban investment portfolios, deploy blended finance that combines EU, European Investment Bank, national, and private capital, and strengthen clean-tech ecosystems that connect cities, SMEs, research, and industry. Cities should also be represented in the ECF Strategic Stakeholder Board, ensuring that urban perspectives are reflected at the programming stage and that future calls respond to real implementation needs. Representation alone, however, will only be effective if it comes with sufficient resources and decision-making authority to match — a seat at the table without either is a procedural gesture, not genuine governance.

The Cities Mission has shown that Europe already knows how to govern complex societal transformations at scale. The next MFF has the advantage of utilising what cities have already built. That advantage should not be wasted. What remains to be seen is whether the next MFF provides sufficient structural guarantees to make this advantage effective in practice, rather than leaving it dependent on national discretion.