Economia, territorio e azienda. Edizione 2020

European economic policy is divided into programming cycles, based on the provisions of art. 312 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, according to which “the multiannual financial framework (MFF) is established for a period of at least five years”. The long-term EU budget translates the EU’s political priorities into financial terms over a period of several years and sets the maximum annual amounts (“ceilings”) of EU expenditure, overall and for the main categories / priorities of expenditure (headings). The multiannual approach to the budget ensures budgetary discipline and the orderly development of Union expenditure in line with the political objectives of the Union and within the limits of its own resources. The long-term budget also offers certainty to beneficiaries of EU funds, such as small and medium-sized enterprises, recovering regions, students, researchers, farmers or civil society organizations, as well as to national authorities, regional and local. Long-term budgets became part of the functioning of the EU in 1988, as with the launch of the internal market program in 1987 more investment would have been needed and therefore a larger budget. The multiannual financial plans (or perspectives), for cycles of between 5 and 7 years, allowed to ease the tensions related to the annual approval procedures.