This impact assessment (IA) focuses on EU funding supporting the policy areas of cross-border education, training, solidarity, youth, media, culture and creative sectors, values, and civil society. It aims to assess the most important policy choices underpinning the legislative proposals for programmes under the next multiannual financial framework (MFF).
Based on the results of the mid-term evaluations of the current funding instruments for the period 2021-2027, this impact assessment also considers the ambition, set out in the Political Guidelines, which envisions the new long-term EU budget to be more focused, simpler, more impactful, and articulated through fewer programmes.
Policy aspects are considered in the analysis of the context, the problem definition and the objectives, informing the choices on funding architecture. Given that the structure of the next MFF will significantly differ from the current one 1 , this impact assessment does not include budgetary scenarios at this stage.
In addition to the results of the mid-term evaluations of the current programmes and the final evaluations of preceding programmes, this IA builds on the spending review exercises, various sectorial reports, studies and research. It also reflects the outcomes of the Open Public Consultation (OPC), which gathered 5,845 valid replies, as well as other stakeholders‘ consultations organised by the Commission as part of this exercise.