What changed between the plenary report and the adopted text

15. Considers that the next MFF will be crucial for preparing the EU for enlargement and the candidate countries for accession;

16. Recalls the Parliament position expressed in its resolution of 7 May 2025 on a revamped long-term budget for the Union in a changing world that the EU’s long-term budget must move away from the historically restrictive, self-imposed level of 1 % of aggregated gross national income; stresses that the Draghi and Letta reports have shown that significant additional own resources are required for the EU to become more competitive, complete the just and green transition and be in a position to defend itself autonomously from Russian aggression by 2030;

17. Stresses that the post 2027 MFF and a more effective budget, including the new own resources package, should enable the EU to move decisively towards enlarging while safeguarding current policies, programmes and priorities;

The democracy challenge

18. Stresses the importance of bolstering the democratic legitimacy of EU policies by reinforcing the decision-making and scrutiny rights, including a strong right of inquiry, of the European Parliament, which is the only directly elected institution representing EU citizens;

19. Underlines the key role that EU accession countries’ parliaments play in the EU accession process, in particular by passing accession-related legislation, and emphasises the importance of parliamentary cooperation and consensus-building on EU accession matters in this regard; reiterates the European Parliament’s readiness to use its political and technical resources to help parliaments in accession countries make progress on the EU-related reform agenda, including through democracy support activities; welcomes the progress made in a number of candidate countries, including through mediation activities and the Jean Monnet Dialogue process;

20. Stresses that reforming the EU decision-making processes requires the empowerment of Parliament by placing it on an equal footing with the Council; reiterates its call for Parliament to gain the full right of legislative initiative – the power to introduce, amend or repeal Union law; is convinced that a general and direct right of initiative would further strengthen the democratic legitimacy of the EU and empower EU citizens;

21. Recognises that Parliament’s direct rights of initiative are far from sufficient to allow it to represent EU citizens, civil society and social partners within the European institutions, effectively leaving the Commission with a monopoly on legislative initiative;

22. Underlines that the Treaty of Lisbon already bestows direct rights of initiative on Parliament, acknowledging its competence to self-organise, its scrutiny function and its democratic legitimacy as the only directly elected EU institution;

23. Considers it essential to improve the transparency and democratic accountability of Parliament, by strengthening the European dimension of the elections and by laying down uniform electoral rules across the EU; calls on the remaining Member State to ratify Council Decision 2018/994; calls on the Council to work on the suggestions put forward in Parliament’s position of 3 May 2022; reiterates its call for Parliament and the Council to make progress in discussions on the introduction of a permanent mechanism for the allocation of seats of the European Parliament;

Means of implementing institutional pre-enlargement reforms

24. Considers that the above objectives of the institutional pre-enlargement reforms can be implemented by various means, including by activating the flexibilities offered by the current Treaties through one or more targeted Treaty amendments;

25. Recalls that a number of flexibility instruments, such as passerelle clauses, enhanced cooperation, constructive abstentions, PESCO and opt-out mechanisms, are already possible under the current EU legal framework, as evidenced by the experiences of the Schengen area, one of the greatest achievements of the EU, and the single currency; recalls that phasing-in solutions, temporary derogations and transition periods can be negotiated for certain policy fields in the context of accession procedures;

26. Reiterates its position that differentiated integration should always take place within the Treaty framework, should maintain the unity of the EU institutions and should not lead to the creation of parallel institutional arrangements or arrangements that indirectly contravene the spirit and the fundamental principles of EU law, but should instead enable specific bodies to be established where appropriate, without prejudice to the competences and role of the EU institutions;

27. Highlights that flexibilities provided for by the current Treaties allow for more to be done to advance towards a European defence union, without requiring a comprehensive Treaty reform process; underlines that the establishment of a permanent European defence union will ultimately require a unanimous decision in line with Article 42(2);

28. Stresses that, in the field of defence, PESCO (ex Article 46 TEU) enables a group of Member States to move forward towards the creation of a European defence system; notes that, despite the fact that PESCO has mainly been used for industrial defence projects, it has the broader potential to enable willing Member States to institutionalise common defence without delay, even in the absence of unanimity within the European Council;

29. Underscores that, pursuant to existing Treaty provisions, a decision taken by qualified majority would allow the creation of a European defence system under Article 42(6) TEU and Article 1(b) of Protocol 10, while leaving the door open for other Member States to join at a later stage, as was the case with the economic and monetary union; calls, in this respect, on the Commission and on willing Member States to activate PESCO provisions to this end without delay;

30. Calls on the Commission and the Council to clearly communicate the findings of the policy reviews and to develop, in cooperation with Parliament, a realistic, sequenced roadmap for implementing the necessary institutional reforms in conjunction with the enlargement process;

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31. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and the Commission.