EU Budget: Pennies for the Dollar?

EU Budget: Pennies for the Dollar?
You may wonder what comes after trillion, but the EU budget is still small

LinkedIn blog post, 17/07/2025, by Sven Franck (en français , in Deutsch)

TL;DR - Yesterday, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen presented the new EU budget (Multiannual Finanical Framework or "MFF") to be negotiated over the next 24 months with an increase to 1.984 Trillion € or 1.26% of Gross National Income (GNI) - up from 1.13% for the ongoing period.

Minus the repayment of Covid recovery loans, the next EU budget seems just on par with the current budget. Far from the 3 trillion Volt Europa proposed and a tough sell to member states trying to limbo under the 3% debt-hurdle while committing to 5% NATO spending and ruling out EU digital taxes on Google & co to not offend US President Trump. Speaking of:

🇺🇸 The US federal budget is a whopping 23% of GDP

Yes, GNI is not GDP and the EU is not the US, but America gets some things right: Kentucky doesn't handle immigration. Vermont doesn't protect its border with Canada and neither of them maintain a military. These things happen on federal level and to do so, the US federal budget is a massive 23% of GDP (in billions per year: EU ~280, US ~6700).

Compared to the US, the proposed EU budget is timid. And still, EU member states will fight tooth and nail as they refuse to see the big picture: they are wasting gazillions by not integrating and by upholding their belief of national geopolitical relevance.

Topics like external border protection, immigration and defence in a union don't belong on national level. We could save "bigly" by bundling and delegating these responsibilities and budgets to the EU. Instead, we prefer cutting public services or dropping national holidays as France just proposed.

💸 Why pay once when you can pay 27 times for the same thing?

Social protection and a credible military deterrent are not mutually exclusive - if member states stopped paying 27 times for the same thing. Any government who tells you, our societies will have to make sacrifices is only telling half the story: the sacrifice is required because they are unwilling to advancing the European project towards a more federal, integrated union.

A strong Commission President would not bargain for a few digits behind the comma, but rather stir the debate showing just how much national governments could reduce their expenditures by delegating certain competences and budgets to the European level. That, for me, would be worth 24 months of negotiations. For more. #jumpstartEU.