Public Consultation on the External Financing Instruments of the European Union

The Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) of the European Union lays down the maximum annual amounts which the EU may spend in different political fields over a certain period. The current MFF covers the period 2014 to 2020.

Within the MFF, Heading 4 – Global Europe, covers all external action of the EU and is mainly composed of the External Financing Instruments (EFI) which provide support to third countries and people abroad. The EFIs are:

• the Development Cooperation Instrument
• the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights
• the European Neighbourhood Instrument
• the Greenland Decision
• the Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace
• the Instrument for Nuclear Safety Co-operation
• the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance
• the Overseas Countries and Territories Decision[1]
• the Partnership Instrument for cooperation with third countries and
• the Common Implementing Regulation which lays down the rules applied to most of the EFIs[2].

The 11th European Development Fund is also an EFI although not funded by the EU budget. It is as such not part of the MFF but it covers the same period and is included in this consultation.

According to Article 17 of the Common Implementing Regulation (CIR), a mid-term review of the instruments covered by the CIR has to be presented to the European Parliament and the Council by the end of 2017. To assist the Commission in this task, independent evaluations have been commissioned for each instrument. The draft evaluation reports are available hereunder.

The objective of this consultation is twofold:

• to gather feedback from the broadest possible range of stakeholders, including those in beneficiary countries and in the EU Member States, on the emerging conclusions from the evaluations.
• to gather preliminary ideas on the future external financing instruments after the current ones have expired by 31 December 2020.

The opinions expressed in these draft reports represent the authors’ points of view, which are not necessarily shared by the European Commission nor by the authorities of the countries involved.