The European Union's budget and who pays for it

The European Union spends about one euro in every hundred that its members' economies produce, a fiftieth of what their own governments spend. Every seven years the twenty-seven must agree unanimously on the next budget, and the negotiation that has now begun, for 2028 to 2034, is the hardest yet. The Union has been asked to arm, to support Ukraine, to guard its borders and to compete with America and China. It must also start repaying the debt it took on in the pandemic. The countries that pay the most want it to spend less.

The wider dispute and each side's full account: The struggle over power inside the European Union.

Where it stands · September 2026

Germany called for cuts of hundreds of billions of euros to the EU budget and issued an ultimatum on 29 September. The same day, Stocker threatened a veto. Over half of EU countries missed the 1 September deadline for their nature restoration plans. The Commission put 3.18 million euros in farm subsidies to Agrofert on hold on 7 September.

What the dispute is about

How much. The Commission proposes a larger budget. Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Denmark and Finland answer that their own budgets are being cut at home.

From whom. Today most of the money comes from national treasuries according to the size of each economy. The Commission wants revenues of the Union's own: levies on tobacco, on electronic waste, on large companies, and a share of carbon permits. For its opponents that is a European tax by another name.

For what, and on what terms. A third still goes to farmers and a third to poorer regions. The proposal folds both into a single plan per country, paid out when agreed reforms are met. Regions and farmers fear losing their guaranteed share, and governments in dispute with Brussels fear the conditions.

How each side explains it

The account of the Commission and the Parliament

Governments ask the Union to do more every year: defence, Ukraine, borders, industry. They cannot also ask it to cost less. The pandemic debt falls due from 2028 whatever anyone decides; without new revenue, repaying it means cutting the programmes members value. A budget of just over one percent of the economy is small for what is expected of it, and national rebates and guaranteed envelopes are why so little of it goes to anything new.

In our coverage

Deeper EU integration and solidarity are the answer →5 headlines
Covered by:EurActiv · ANSA · Handelsblatt

The account of the paying states

Their voters are being asked to accept cuts at home, and cannot be asked to send more abroad. The Union should do what it does with the money it has, by spending less on farming and on regions that have received funds for forty years, and more on what only Europe can do. Joint borrowing was sold as a single exception. New European levies would fall on the same taxpayers and companies by another route.

The account of the receiving states and the farmers

What each account leaves out

The Commission's leaves out that the Union's own auditors find a material rate of error in its spending every year; that the largest farm payments go to the largest landowners; and that the joint debt was presented as a single exception.

The paying states' leaves out that their companies gain more from the single market than any other members' do, by most estimates several times their net payment; and that Germany lifted its own debt limit in 2025 for the purposes it declines to fund jointly.

The receiving states' leaves out that decades of funds have not closed the gap for southern Italy or Greece, and that much of the recovery money could not be spent in time.

The national-conservatives' leaves out that their own regions and farmers are among the largest beneficiaries, and that the governments they lead negotiate for every euro of it.

The ledger

The Commission

Wanted: a larger budget and revenue of its own.
Gained: France's support for a company levy.
Paid: its proposal was rejected by its largest member before talks began.

The paying states

Wanted: a smaller bill and a say over what it buys.
Gained: a common front of six.
Paid: nothing yet, but each of them also wants the Union to do more on defence.

The receiving states

Wanted: to keep farm and regional money.
Gained

Words in dispute

Names and terms the sides do not share. This page keeps them out of its own voice.

own resources / European taxes
net contributor / beneficiary of the single market
solidarity / transfer union
conditionality / blackmail
frugal
common debt / one-off

Events per week

Per-week distribution of events. Click a bar to see that week's top events.

Click a week bar to select. Light blue = active week.

Week of Sep 28, 2026(9)

Germany issues EU budget ultimatum

3 sourcesSep 29, 2026

EU should use Google fines to cut member state contributions to budget, France says

2 sourcesSep 29, 2026

Car industry seeks ties to far right over combustion engine ban

1 sourcesOct 2, 2026

Merz seeks to curb EU budget spending increase

1 sourcesOct 1, 2026

Ukraine corruption scheme funded by EU taxpayers: SVR statements

1 sourcesOct 1, 2026

Future EU budget: Stocker threatens veto

1 sourcesSep 29, 2026

Frugal countries pile on pressure to shrink EU budget

1 sourcesSep 29, 2026

Merz and five other leaders push for leaner EU budget

1 sourcesSep 29, 2026

Germany opposes von der Leyen's EU budget plans

1 sourcesSep 29, 2026

The European Union's budget and who pays for it

What the dispute is about

How each side explains it

The account of the Commission and the Parliament

The account of the paying states

The account of the receiving states and the farmers

What each account leaves out

The ledger

The Commission

The paying states

The receiving states

Words in dispute

Events per week

Primary actors

The account of the national-conservative parties

What changed the course