Although talks on the EU's next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) might appear dull on the surface, we should force ourselves to take notice of them and emphasise the long-term importance of the external tranche of the budget. The European Union is engaged in quite a few self-defining processes that regularly make the front pages: learning to live with a growing internal faction of nativist, right-wing national governments, preparing for the election of many of their sympathisers to the next European Parliament in 2019, and negotiating the United Kingdom's departure from the club. But, far from the headlines, in windowless meeting rooms near the Schuman roundabout in Brussels, the EU began last month a set of negotiations that could be just as critical to its future.