Council sets 150 million euro third EDF instalment for 2026

The Council of the European Union has set at EUR 150 000 000 the third instalment of the contributions to be paid by the parties to the European Development Fund (EDF) during 2026, with the individual amounts per contributor laid down in an annex. The decision was adopted in Brussels on 22 October 2026 and signed by the President of the Council, T. Byrne. It is published in the Official Journal of the European Union, L series, of 23 October 2026 as Council Decision (EU) 2026/2373.

The legal basis is the Internal Agreement between the representatives of the governments of the Member States on the financing of EU aid under the 2014-2020 multiannual financial framework in accordance with the ACP-EU Partnership Agreement, and in particular its Article 7(2) read with Article 14(3). The operative instrument is Council Regulation (EU) 2018/1877 of 26 November 2018 on the financial regulation applicable to the 11th EDF, whose Article 19(5) required the European Commission to table a proposal by 10 October 2026 specifying the amount of the third instalment.

Under Article 20(1) of that regulation, calls for contributions must first use up the amounts provided for in previous EDFs, which is why the decision authorises a call for funds covering both the Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB). The annual amount of the 2026 contribution had already been fixed at EUR 700 000 000 for the Commission by Council Decision (EU) 2025/2324 of 13 November 2025, published in the Official Journal of 14 November 2025.

A 150 million euro call on a 700 million euro envelope

Article 1 of the decision sets the third instalment for 2026 at EUR 150 000 000 for the Commission. Article 2 obliges the parties to the fund to pay their individual third instalments in accordance with the annex, and Article 3 provides that the decision enters into force on the day of its publication in the Official Journal, so that the measures apply without delay.

The EIB does not appear in the call: according to the recitals, the Bank called all of its share of the 11th EDF with the first instalment of 2025. The annex carries a footnote repeating that point, which means the whole of the EUR 150 000 000 is destined for the Commission.

Who pays what

The annex applies the 11th EDF contribution key, which still includes the United Kingdom, and totals 100.00 % of the call. The largest contributors are:

Germany: EUR 30 869 700 (20.57980 %)
France: EUR 26 719 035 (17.81269 %)
United Kingdom: EUR 22 017 930 (14.67862 %)
Italy: EUR 18 795 135 (12.53009 %)
Spain: EUR 11 898 720 (7.93248 %)
Netherlands: EUR 7 165 170 (4.77678 %)
Belgium: EUR 4 873 905 (3.24927 %)
Sweden: EUR 4 408 665 (2.93911 %)

At the other end of the scale, the smallest shares are Malta with EUR 57 015 (0.03801 %), Estonia with EUR 129 525 (0.08635 %) and Cyprus with EUR 167 430 (0.11162 %). The five largest contributors together account for roughly 73.5 % of the instalment.

A fund in its closing phase

The EDF has never been part of the Union’s general budget. The 11th EDF reached its final stage when its sunset clause took effect on 31 December 2020, although specific contracts for existing financing agreements were signed until 31 December 2023 and implementation of ongoing projects continues until completion, as recorded in Resolution (EU) 2026/1577 of the European Parliament. For the 2021-2027 financial framework, development cooperation aid to ACP countries was folded into the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument – Global Europe.

Each instalment therefore does not open new programmes so much as fund the winding down of a legacy instrument: the money called in this decision is what allows the Commission to honour payments on projects already contracted with partner countries.

The relevance for readers is immediate and financial. The EUR 150 000 000 call, published on 23 October 2026, determines the cash the Commission will have available to pay out European aid to ACP partners in the coming months, and it distributes that burden across national treasuries according to a fixed key in which Germany, France and the United Kingdom alone carry more than half the total.

Source: Official Journal of the European Union, L series, 2026/2373, 23 October 2026, p. 1-4 (official reference: Council Decision (EU) 2026/2373, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/dec/2026/2373/oj).