Memo: Making sense of the MFF/ budget 2014/ amending budgets 2013 maze

The negotiations on the 2014-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) are in full swing. As a rule, MFF negotiations are immensely complex as they encompass everything the EU will do over seven years. However, this time round the Rubik's cube has morphed into some sort of Rubik's dodecahedron as the MFF negotiations are linked to the adoption of a number of amending budgets for 2013 and the adoption of the 2014 EU budget. This leads to an avalanche of figures competing with each other to confuse journalists.