Parliament is on a collision course with Berlin

Community budget

EU budget: Parliament is on a collision course with Berlin

The European Commission is proposing a community budget of almost two trillion euros for the years after 2028 – that is not enough for the MPs. Money should also come from new sources.

The European Parliament is embarking on a confrontation course with net contributor states such as Germany in the negotiations over the next long-term EU budget. The majority of MPs in Strasbourg voted in favor of a community budget that would contain another ten percent more money than proposed by the EU Commission.

The federal government and states such as the Netherlands had already rejected the commission’s draft as unacceptable. A diplomat from a net contributor country criticized: “Instead of facing the realities of financial policy, the European Parliament is resorting to a kind of wishful thinking about financial policy.” Net contributors are countries that pay more money into the EU budget than they get back from it.

As a new source of income, MPs are, among other things, in favor of a tax on digital services from companies such as Google and Amazon.

The EU budget is one of the most politically sensitive issues in Brussels. It will be set for seven years; the budget for 2028 to 2034 is currently being negotiated. The European Commission is proposing around 1.76 trillion euros, adjusted for inflation (at 2025 prices), which should be used for various EU projects – such as defense procurement, agricultural policy, structural support or the Erasmus exchange program.