Measuring the Real Impact of the EU Budget

During a debate at the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) in Brussels, Policy Lab Director and EESC member Ajda K. Pistotnik raised a simple but fundamental question about the future of EU spending:

What do we actually mean by success?

The debate focused on the proposed EU Budget Expenditure Tracking and Performance Framework, which will shape how expenditure and results are monitored across the next Multiannual Financial Framework for 2028–2034.

The European Commission’s proposal seeks to introduce a more unified system of indicators across the EU budget, improving transparency, coherence and comparability between programmes. These are welcome objectives. Citizens have a right to know where public money goes and what it achieves.

However, greater consistency in reporting does not automatically mean that the EU will become better at identifying meaningful change.

From measuring implementation to measuring outcomes

Current monitoring systems are generally effective at recording activities and immediate outputs. They can count the number of projects financed, participants involved, strategies adopted, consultations organised and investments made.

What is much harder to determine is whether these interventions have:

• improved people’s everyday lives;
• strengthened social cohesion;
• reduced economic and social inequalities;
• expanded democratic participation;
• created and maintained quality employment; or
• contributed to long-term environmental sustainability.

As Pistotnik stressed, a programme can meet all its formal targets while still failing to address the deeper problem it was intended to solve.

This distinction is especially important in fields such as social inclusion, education, civil society development and community-building. Meaningful transformations in these areas frequently take years to become visible and cannot always be expressed through a small number of standardised quantitative indicators.

The EESC opinion recognises this challenge. It supports the creation of a coherent performance framework but also warns that results—particularly those of social interventions—may be difficult to measure within short reporting periods. It therefore calls for quantitative reporting to be complemented by qualitative indicators where necessary.

Participation must be meaningful, not merely recorded

Pistotnik also welcomed the opinion’s emphasis on the partnership principle and the involvement of organised civil society in the design, implementation and monitoring of EU-funded programmes.

Nevertheless, monitoring participation must go beyond counting meetings, consultations or organisations invited to submit comments.

A meaningful performance framework should also examine whether civil society organisations had sufficient time, information and resources to participate—and whether their contributions influenced decisions, programme design or implementation.

We should not only ask how many consultations took place. We should ask whether participation made a difference.

The EESC has similarly called for both quantitative and qualitative indicators covering civil society and social-partner engagement throughout the entire policy cycle, as well as greater technical assistance for organisations expected to participate in monitoring and implementation.

Measuring what truly matters

The debate over performance indicators is not merely technical. The indicators selected by European institutions inevitably shape political priorities.

When success is defined mainly through spending rates, completed activities and short-term outputs, public institutions risk prioritising what is easiest to document rather than what is most socially valuable.

The next EU budget should therefore be assessed against broader public objectives: social well-being, democratic resilience, equality, quality employment, ecological sustainability and the ability of communities to shape decisions that affect them.

This also requires looking beyond GDP growth and narrow measurements of economic performance. Public expenditure should not be considered successful simply because funds were absorbed efficiently. It should be considered successful when it contributes to a fairer, more democratic and ecologically sustainable society.

As the EU prepares its Multiannual Financial Framework for 2028–2034, the discussion must not be reduced to what can be counted most easily.

Good governance requires measuring what truly matters.

This contribution is connected to Policy Lab’s wider work on strengthening civil society participation, democratic resilience and policy influence within the Catalysts of Change project, supported by the Netherlands Helsinki Committee and co-funded by the European Union.

Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union, the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) or the Netherlands Helsinki Committee. Neither the European Union nor the EACEA nor the NHC can be held responsible for them.