On July 16, 2025, the European Commission presented its proposal for Europe’s future funding framework—the Multi-Annual Financial Plan (MFF) for 2028-2034. The proposal received widespread media coverage and Global Airspace Radar took a deeper look at the implications for our sector.
The MFF proposal amounts to a nearly €2 trillion budget, representing 1.26% of the EU’s gross national income in the period. The political aim is to equip Europe to match its ambitions of becoming an independent, prosperous, secure, and thriving society and economy over the coming decade.
The proposal rests on four key pillars:
- Enhanced flexibility across the budget, to act and react swiftly when circumstances change
- Streamlined EU financial programmes, enabling companies to easily find and access funding
- Restructured National and Regional Partnership Plans
- A competitiveness boost, focusing on supply chains, scale-up innovation, and leading the global race for clean and smart technology.
The new Competitiveness Fund
Part of the MFF budget is a new European Competitiveness Fund worth €409 billion, which aims to drive prosperity through competitiveness, research, and innovation. The Fund proposes a single gateway for applicants, aiming for simplifying and accelerating EU funding and includes key themes affecting aviation:
- Clean transition and decarbonisation
- Digital transition
- Defence and space.
In close connection with the European Competitiveness Fund, the EU research framework within Horizon Europe, worth €175 billion, will continue to finance new solutions for sustainable, digital and resilient transport. The Commission presented simultaneously the corresponding regulation on the future processes.
The Commission’s goal is to increase efficiency and they stated: “Horizon Europe and the Competitiveness Fund will offer support for the entire investment journey of a project (from conception phase to scale-up) and reduce both the cost for potential beneficiaries and the time for disbursement.” Stakeholders will be closely monitoring whether the Commission achieves this objective.
To recap, Horizon Europe is the primary EU source for funding SESAR JU and Clean Aviation JU— their future is essential for aviation research and innovation.
A doubled transport budget
The transport sector achieves a significant win: its budget has been doubled. Within the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), which is part of the overall MFF, the transport infrastructure funding will increase from €25.8 billion to €51.5 billion from 2028-34. This is important news for the SESAR community and Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) particularly, as the CEF is the primary EU funding source for SESAR deployment.
The CEF will play a key role in supporting dual-use cross-border infrastructure projects. It includes €17.65 billion for military mobility across all transport modes—a 10x increase. This will support dual-use infrastructure investments alongside civilian ones, aiming for boosting cybersecurity, infrastructure, and overall defence development. The Air Traffic Management (ATM) sector would be well advised to continually remind decision makers that it forms part of critical infrastructure and is of great importance for military applications.
The Commissioner for Transport and Tourism, Mr. Tzitzikostas praised the positive aspects of the new MFF for his portfolio: “The sovereignty of Europe depends on our competitiveness and security. The next MFF will, and must, target both… So I believe all of us, and of course the transport community, can be satisfied.”
Space and defence spending
The defence and space part of the European Competitiveness Fund will allocate €131 billion to support investment in defence, security, and space—five times more funding at EU level compared to the previous MFF.
Europe’s leadership in space is considered a strategic necessity, as space technology, data, and services are critical for achieving EU priorities and ensuring security. The new MFF commits to key programmes such as Galileo, Copernicus, and IRIS², to ensure European autonomy in space-based navigation, Earth observation, and secure communications.
A focus on dual-use technologies benefiting both civil and defence applications remains essential and will benefit the aerospace technology providers.
Timeline for decisions: the clock is ticking
The same day European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen presented the budget proposal, criticism and financial battles began. From the German Chancellor to the Dutch Finance Minister, to Members of the European Parliament and the agriculture lobby—all attacked the proposal for different reasons and the race has started to negotiate strategic decisions and final money allocation.
We are entering two years of bargaining until the MFF is finally approved. The budget’s most substantial allocations have historically been dominated by agriculture and regional funding, while defence, green and digital transformation are now emerging as new contenders for financial priority. Time for aviation to relax? Absolutely not. The MFF presentation was the final wake-up call for stakeholders to take action if they want any influence and a share of the budget.
Get into action if you’re not yet in the policy game
To present your case effectively, you must act now and prepare your plans for after the summer break. Is aviation on the public agenda? Clearly not. Aviation and ATM are niche sectors whose contribution to the European economy, sovereignty, and green transformation remains largely unknown. Aviation is essential for Europe’s competitiveness and connectivity but it is hardly regarded as critical.
Our sector has not yet become sufficiently adept at presenting its value to citizens and its role in the civil-military critical infrastructure. Now is the time to perform better.
Do we have sufficient information and arguments to present? Absolutely. The latest Aviation Research and Innovation Strategy (ARIS) strategy provides one example. Based on ARIS, work remains to be done: defining the future of SESAR and Clean Aviation JU.
Time to act
While the ambition level is high, the proposed MFF emerges during times of geopolitical uncertainty, economic turmoil over tariff wars, growing global competition in technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI), defence and space capabilities, and when national governments are battling budget constraints. The current MFF proposal will not be the final version.
Adopting the MFF Regulation requires unanimity by the Member States, following European Parliament consent. The States will have significant influence in negotiations over the next two years and will make final Council decisions. National ministries of transport, defence, space, and research will be key actors.
Are all ANSPs, airports, airlines and technology providers well-prepared? Are associations already active enough? I doubt we can assure a “yes” for all actors across the 27 Member States. In Brussels, the industry must act jointly and decisively.
Our sector isn’t large, so we must be smart
Agriculture has tractors that can block roads in capitals and the Schuman roundabout in Brussels. Sectors like Big Tech command effectively unlimited budgets for multinational lobbying firms and benefit campaigns.
The aviation sector has neither tractors nor substantial money – our only chance is to be smart and to act now. We should not relax over the coming months and wait until the last funds are allocated to others, and then feel sorry for ourselves.
My call to action: don’t wait until all the funds are gone and then regret it.
