Written by Ralf Drachenberg, Annastiina Papunen and Rebecca Zamponi.
General
The European Council will be preceded by pre-summit meetings of European political parties with their respective affiliated EU leaders. Additionally, a group of ‘like-minded’ countries on migration will also meet prior to the start of the meeting. Following a similar pattern, a new group of 17 leaders, including Germany, Belgium and Italy, met by videoconference on 8 June to discuss competitiveness issues.
As usual, the European Council meeting will start with an address by the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola. For the first time, the report of the rotating Council Presidency on the follow-up to the previous European Council conclusions will be given in the presence of the European Parliament President. This report by Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides will include an overview of the implementation of the ‘One Europe, One Market’ roadmap signed in the margins of the informal meeting of Heads of State or Government in Cyprus in April 2026.
The membership of the European Council has evolved since the last European Council meeting. With the departure of Viktor Orbán, Emmanuel Macron is now the longest serving European Council member continuously in office (since 2017).
European Council meeting
Ukraine
The discussion on Ukraine will start with an exchange of views with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who on 4 June 2026 published an open letter to President Vladimir Putin, proposing to end the war through direct engagement between the two leaders. The proposed meeting would take place in a neutral location ‘with active US and European participation’ and ‘the front line today [as] the line from which diplomacy must begin.’. Three days after the letter, President Zelenskyy issued a joint statement with the leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom, outlining five conditions for just and lasting peace.Thus, EU leaders may express the EU’s readiness to step up its engagement in peace negotiations.
In his invitation letter to EU leaders, European Council President António Costa underlined the effectiveness of the EU’s ‘two-pronged approach – supporting Ukraine and increasing pressure on Russia’. Concerning support for Ukraine, the European Council is expected to discuss intensifying efforts to rebuild critical energy and civilian infrastructure as well as accelerating the production and delivery of military equipment, notably ammunition, drones and missiles. As regards pressure on Russia, the European Council could reiterate the importance of weakening Russia’s economy and thus its ability to wage war. Following the unveiling of the 21st package of sanctions, which targets heavily the country’s banking system and crypto networks, EU leaders may call for swift adoption of the new package. In parallel, after asking in March 2026 for ‘the potential threat posed to the EU’s internal security by Russian ex-combatants having participated in the aggression against Ukraine to be assessed, the European Council could ask for further work to be carried out to address this threat, and possibly consider banning Russian citizens having served in the country’s armed forces since 2022 from entering EU territory. In addition, the call by 11 Schengen countries for stricter visa rules for all Russian citizens – which follows a surge in visas issued to Russian tourists in 2024 and 2025 – may also be raised.
Although not formally on the agenda, the topic of enlargement could turn out to be the subject of broader discussions. First, because EU leaders are likely to welcome the holding of the Intergovernmental Conference on the accession of Ukraine, and Moldova, to the European Union, and the agreement to open the fundamentals cluster on 15 June 2026. Second, because EU leaders may wish to underline the ‘new impetus’ given to the enlargement process at the EU-Western Balkans Summit in Montenegro on 5 June and reiterate their support for the region’s path to EU membership in line with a merit-based approach. Third, because, after the Franco-German initiative of 4 June 2026 suggesting ways of gradually integrating candidate countries into the EU, the European Council may wish to discuss the ‘new ideas to streamline and accelerate the process,’ which, as President Costa stressed, are currently under consideration. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz had previously addressed a letter to Presidents Costa, von der Leyen, and Christodoulides, proposing to grant Ukraine ‘associate member status’, while offering ‘observer status’ and access to the single market to Western Balkan countries.
Middle East
The European Council is expected to discuss the constantly evolving situation in Iran and the wider Middle East region. After the announced memorandum of understanding between Iran and the United States, which envisages an ‘immediate and permanent’ end of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, EU leaders may welcome the peace agreement and the toll-free reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Due to be signed on 19 June, the agreement plans to ease sanctions and begin negotiations over nuclear issues. In a joint statement, the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Cyprus and Greece, as well as Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, expressed their readiness also to lift sanctions imposed on Iran and work ‘with the US, Iran and regional partners to … achieve a long-term diplomatic settlement’. Ahead of the G7 summit in Evian, President Costa signalled the EU’s willingness to contribute to a global strategy for a lasting peace in the Middle East. In that context, EU leaders are likely to discuss preparations under way aimed at guaranteeing the freedom of navigation in the Strait, and consider a possible reinforcement of the mandate of the EU maritime defensive operation, EUNAVFOR ASPIDES.
The European Council will also discuss the situation in Gaza and the West Bank. On Gaza, they may touch upon the preparation of restrictive measures against Israelis due to the treatment of activists who were bringing aid to Gaza. A number of Member States have increasingly become critical of Israel following the interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters and the mistreatment of those on board, who included a number of EU citizens. As a result of the incident, Italy, which has previously blocked attempts to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement, called for sanctions against the Israeli Minister of National Security, Ben-Gvir. However, it remains unlikely that EU leaders will reach a unanimous agreement on calling for sanctions against a sitting Israeli Minister ahead of upcoming Israeli elections. Additionally, in the context of the EU leaders’ reiterated condemnation of unilateral Israeli action aimed at further expanding illegal settlements, the concerns expressed by several Member States regarding products from illegal Israeli settlements entering the European market may also be raised.
Next multiannual financial framework
Following a first discussion in April 2026, EU leaders will hold an exchange of views on the 2028-2034 MFF based on a new negotiating box with figures drawn up by the current Cyprus Council Presidency.
On the MFF, the dividing lines in the European Council are normally between the net contributors and the net beneficiaries.[1]The former group includes Denmark, Germany, France, Austria, the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden; some of these Member States are known as the ‘frugals‘. The net beneficiaries meet under the name ‘friends of cohesion’ and include Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Italy,[2] Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia.These two groups meet separately ahead of meetings in the Council, and sometimes the European Council, to coordinate their positions before the main meeting. Cyprus, as the current Council Presidency, and Ireland, which will take over on 1 July, do not formally attend these meetings, in order to remain ‘an honest broker’.
As in negotiations for previous MFFs, the usual dividing lines concern i) the size of the EU budget, ii) the balance between policy areas, iii) the existence and size of rebates, and iv) new own resources. An additional topic is the pace of repayment of the joint debt resulting from the EU recovery plan (i.e. Next Generation EU).
Regarding the size of the EU budget, the European Commission proposed a long-term budget of €1.789 trillion (in commitments over seven years in constant 2025 prices). While the European Parliament suggested in its interim report of 28 April 2026 a nominal increase of €175.11 billion (2025 constant prices) to this proposal, the frugal Member States have demanded to reduce the spending proposed by the Commission. The new negotiating box of the Cyprus Council Presidency, which only suggests an overall reduction of around 2 % of the original Commission MFF proposal, has received substantial criticism by the frugal Member States, the latter even expressing doubt over the Cyprus Presidency’s capacity to act as a ‘true honest broker’.
As regards the balance between policy areas, the friends of cohesion have, in a joint declaration of 25 May 2026, argued that the next MFF needed to provide sufficient resources for the cohesion policy, common agricultural policy and common fisheries policy. While some net contributors like Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Sweden have rejected this proposal, others such as France and Ireland were less opposed. In Chancellor Merz’s view, EU spending must be modernised to focus on investment in defence and competitiveness, with cuts to traditional farming and regional subsidies.
On the third point, the budget correction mechanisms – or ‘rebates’ – have been used in the EU’s long-term budget since the 1980s to compensate certain Member States for their financial contributions to the long-term EU budget. The suggestion to abolish these rebates has been put forward in several previous MFF negotiation rounds but has never been followed up on. In their joint declaration, the friends of cohesion have also called for the abolition of rebates, arguing that ‘there is no political or economic rationale for re-introducing them’.
Finally, on new own resources, the Commission submitted a proposal on 16 July 2025 suggesting new own resources on i) a corporate resource for Europe; ii) a tobacco excise duty own resource; iii) a share of the proceeds of the emissions trading system; iv) the carbon border adjustment mechanism; and v) a contribution on non-collected e-waste. At a discussion of EU finance ministers in October 2025, Ireland, Hungary, Finland and Sweden rejected outright any introduction of new own resources, while others such as Czechia and Poland criticised specific new own resources. In April 2026, the European Parliament put forward proposals on future own resources, suggesting to tax digital services, online gambling and crypto-assets. After the April 2026 informal meeting of EU leaders, President Costa signalled openness to considering the suggestions of Parliament, even if concerns have subsequently been expressed over their technical feasibility.
Closely related to discussions on the revenue side of the MFF are ideas put forward by President Macron and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in favour of new common borrowing and a rollover of the pandemic debt to finance the bloc’s shared priorities.
No decisions are expected at this European Council meeting; President Costa’s objective is to give further guidance to the incoming Irish Council Presidency as to the type of new own resources on which a compromise could be achievable. While President Costa has insisted on EU leaders agreeing by the end of 2026 – a timeline expected to be reflected in the conclusions – many Member States have expressed doubts over the feasibility of this timetable.
Global economic challenges
In an extremely challenging geoeconomic environment, EU leaders will hold a strategic debate over dinner on the global macroeconomic imbalances and their impact on EU competitiveness. Previously, in December 2025, they held a similar discussion on ‘Geoeconomy and competitiveness’. However, in six months, the global environment has altered significantly; as President Costa underlined, the discussion will thus aim to ‘develop a common understanding of the challenges and to provide guidance to the Commission on the way forward’. On the one hand, EU leaders will look at ways of strengthening the EU’s strategic autonomy and competitiveness, but at the same time emphasise that fair competition at global level needs to be guaranteed.
In that context, without explicitly mentioning the country, Costa may intend to raise the issue of trade relations with China. Ahead of the European Council meeting, the EU foreign ministers discussed the topic in their meeting on 15 June, while ‘global imbalances’ are also likely to feature on the agenda of the G7 meeting in Evian, France on 15-17 June. The EU has defined China as a partner, a competitor and a systemic rival. China is the EU’s third largest trading partner in goods and services after the US and UK, and the EU and China together account for 29.6 % of global trade. There is a long-standing trade deficit between the EU and China; most recently, the EU has been worried about a possible ‘China Shock 2.0‘, i.e. the large influx of state-subsidised exports of Chinese products such as electric vehicles, batteries and solar panels, as well as steel and chemicals. In March, five EU Member States (France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Lithuania) wrote a joint non-paper calling for tougher measures to counter abusive trade practises, without explicitly mentioning China.
Before dinner, EU leaders are expected to review progress made with the ‘One Europe, One Market’ agenda and the related roadmap, signed on the sidelines of the informal meeting in Cyprus in April. Thus, they will take stock of action aimed at strengthening the single market, enabling Europe’s industrial renewal, simplifying rules, reducing dependencies and encouraging innovation and investment. In the context of ongoing wars in Iran and Ukraine, which have disrupted global supply chains and fundamentally reshaped the EU energy markets, EU leaders envisaged in their March conclusions to return to the issues of affordable energy prices and the Energy Union 2030. They will probably review progress in ‘achieving Europe’s strategic autonomy, strengthening resilience, structurally lowering energy prices, and delivering the clean, abundant and home-grown energy needed to power the economy of the future’.
Although not officially on the agenda, the latest AI models and the challenges they may pose to EU citizens, companies and critical infrastructure may be discussed on the sidelines. US company Anthropic announced in April that it had built a new model, Claude Mythos, which was too powerful to be released to the public due to its extraordinary ability to identify security vulnerabilities in critical software, such as financial and healthcare systems and electricity networks. As a follow-up, the company created Project Glasswing with the aim of securing the most critical software by initially giving some 50 organisations access to the model so that they could identify and fix security problems. The European Commission has been in talks with the company to secure access to EU actors, and especially European banks have been vocal about the topic. On 2 June, the access was expanded to 150 new organisations, including the EU cybersecurity agency ENISA. However, on 12 June, the US administration ordered Anthropic to suspend access to Mythos 5 and Fable 5 models from all foreign nationals, citing national security concerns. This led to Anthropic shutting access to these two models from all customers. Following these developments, there were increasing calls in the EU to speed up the work on technology sovereignty.
European defence and security
Considering ‘Russia’s increasingly reckless and irresponsible behaviour towards EU Member States’, stressed by Costa in his letter to EU leaders, the latter may condemn Russia’s numerous violations of European airspace recently, such as in Romania and Latvia. They are also likely to reiterate the importance of the EU defence readiness agenda, in particular efforts to increase air defence and drone capacity. In that context, EU leaders could welcome the work in the Council on the action plan on drone and counter-drone security.
According to the defence readiness roadmap, the Commission, in cooperation with the lead nations of the capability coalitions, should expand the strategic dialogue with industry, host the first annual Defence Industrial Summit and present an overview of the industrial capacity ramp-up needed to ensure reliable supply for the agreed capability areas by mid-2026. As projects were to be launched in all priority areas within the first half of 2026, EU leaders may evaluate the progress made on these and all other aspects relevant to the defence readiness agenda.
EU leaders may call on the Parliament and Council to make further progress on creating a military mobility area, the AGILE proposal (which seeks to enhance the EU’s capacity to deliver defence innovation more rapidly and effectively), and the defence readiness omnibus.
Migration
Migration has been discussed at every European Council meeting in this institutional cycle, apart from the special European Council on defence in March 2025. EU leaders will again take stock of progress in the implementation of its previous conclusions on migration – this just a few days after the entry into force of the EU migration pact on 12 June. Likewise, EU leaders might welcome the recent provisional agreement of Parliament and Council on changes to EU policy on the return of non-EU nationals staying illegally in the EU.
Fight against illicit drugs
For the first time, the European Council will address challenges linked to the use and trafficking of drugs. While this topic was not mentioned in the European Council’s Strategic Agenda 2024-2029, it features in the European Commission’s political guidelines. EU leaders are expected to provide guidance for the implementation of the EU drugs strategy and the related EU action plan proposed in December 2025 to respond to the growing health, security and societal challenges posed by drug use and trafficking.The EU drugs strategy is based on five pillars: (1) enhancing preparedness and response; (2) protecting public health; (3) improving security and protecting society; (4) addressing risks and harms; and (5) building strong partnerships. On 5 June 2026, Justice and Home Affairs Ministers endorsed the EU drugs strategy and the action plan, adopting conclusions on jointly operationalising them to deliver on the key priorities aimed at reducing drug use and drug-related harm.
European Semester
As is usual at the June European Council meeting, EU leaders will discuss the country-specific recommendations to allow the conclusion of the European Semester cycle. Published on 3 June, the European Semester spring package includes tailored recommendations to each Member State to improve their economic performance. The Council will proceed to the formal adoption of these recommendations after the European Council has discussed them.
Notes
[1] Net contributors to the EU budget are considered to be the Member States who contribute more to the EU budget than the amount of EU funding they receive, and vice versa for net beneficiaries.
[2] While Italy is a net contributing country, it is part of the friends of cohesion.
Read the complete briefing on ‘Outlook for the European Council, 18-19 June‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.
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