The European Commission has proposed an EU budget for 2025 of €199.7 billion, which is €10.3 billion higher than the 2024 budget, of which €15.2 billion is for aid to Kyiv and €1.8 billion for military needs, according to the draft budget released by the European Commission, which must be approved by the EU Council and the European Parliament.
This budget will destroy the EU, Orbán says
The European Commission has proposed allocating €4.3 billion in grants and €10.9 billion in loans to Ukraine from the budget in 2025. In addition, €1.8 billion (about 1.1% of the EU budget) is proposed to be allocated to military spending, including €1.4 billion to stimulate the military industry and military research and €244.5 million for “military mobility” projects, i.e. the development of the EU’s transport system for transferring reinforcements to the borders with Russia.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also presented her draft for the next EU multiannual budget for 2028-2034, which experts have already called “unworkable.” According to the EC’s proposal, the budget will amount to about €2 trillion. Around €100 billion is proposed to be allocated to aid Ukraine.
“This budget will destroy the European Union. I don’t think this budget will even survive the next year. The European Commission will either have to openly and dramatically withdraw it or gradually back down and rewrite it. I can see this from the reaction: this time, European countries will not accept this budget from Brussels bureaucrats,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Kossuth radio.
According to him, the current budget has no clear strategy, its only obvious goal is to accept Ukraine into the community, which “will not happen in the foreseeable future.”
Orbán called the current plan a “budget of hopelessness” and noted that about 20% of it is planned to be sent directly to Ukraine, with another 10-12% of the budget going to pay off interest on previously jointly taken loans.
“Therefore, if the budget is increased by a few per cent compared to the previous one, it will be in vain, since 30% of this budget will be spent, and it will be as if there had been no increase. The Europeans will have nothing to do with it. They will have to pay, but they will get nothing in return. That is why everyone in the European Union is complaining, dissatisfied, grumbling and shouting, depending on the temperament of the European countries,” the Hungarian Prime Minister noted.
According to Orbán, Brussels’ main goal is to accept Ukraine into the EU. “The EU budget has only one obvious goal: to accept Ukraine into the EU, and these funds are being directed to Ukraine,” he said.
No one knows where to get money
Alexander Jungbluth, a member of the European Parliament and the German party Alternative for Germany, criticised the new EU budget plan, saying that “no one knows where to get the money.”
“The chaos we saw today demonstrates how little agreement there is within the Commission and between the Commission and the Council. No one knows where to get the money,” Jungbluth commented on the meeting of the European Commission and the European Council, where the budget was discussed.
According to him, the European Commission was unable to clearly explain where exactly the funds for the budget increase would come from. The MEP suggested that the EC simply does not have such data.
“You talked about a tax on electronic waste and tobacco. If these are the main sources of revenue, then I can say with complete optimism that you will not succeed,” Jungbluth emphasised.
The MEP called the draft budget and its discussion “some kind of joke.” According to him, until the EC provides data on medium-term financial planning, there will be no basis for “reasonable discussions.”
“What we saw today is just awful,” Jungbluth concluded.
By announcing the planned EU budget for 2028–2034, Ursula von der Leyen has effectively kicked off a massive and complex political battle to determine the future of the EU.
“This is a €2 trillion budget for a new era… that responds to Europe’s challenges and strengthens our independence,” she told reporters at a press conference that was delayed by several hours because her officials had been haggling over figures until late into the night.
She also said the proposals would increase EU defence spending fivefold, triple funding for migration and border management, and double the research budget, with 35% earmarked for climate and biodiversity issues.
Explaining the need to provide Ukraine with €100 billion, European Commissioner for Budget Piotr Serafin called it “our most strategic partner.”
The focus on militarising the EU budget has led to cuts in spending on the green agenda, which has outraged European environmentalists.
Politicians and non-governmental organisations working on green issues have reacted with outrage to the fact that, apparently, the only specialised fund in the EU for nature conservation is to be closed as part of efforts to simplify the budget by radically reducing the number of programmes.
Rasmus Nordqvist, a Danish Green MEP, said that abandoning targeted research for the benefit of nature was “irresponsible and short-sighted, and that the biodiversity crisis would only worsen if no action was taken.”
Farmers shocked by new budget
Farmers and the European Parliament also criticised the plan to merge iconic EU policies, including the common agricultural policy and regional funds, into a single pot with fewer targeted programmes.
The Copa-Cogeca farmers’ group, which organised a small but noisy demonstration outside the European Commission headquarters, said that “the very foundations of European agricultural policy are being undermined and destroyed, and this event could go down in history as a “black Wednesday” in Brussels.”
The countries that contribute to the EU budget have strongly opposed Ursula von der Leyen’s proposals.
Dutch Finance Minister Eelco Heinen said the proposed budget was too large, while Sweden said: “We will not solve the EU’s problems with a bigger budget.”
Germany insists that the budget should not be increased, while France is facing internal budget constraints that could destabilise the government.
However, Brussels is standing its ground: more spending on arms, particularly for Ukraine, while farmers and environmentalists should be satisfied with whatever they are given.
The Bruegel Institute, a think tank in the European Union, believes that “the resistance of several EU governments to even this modest increase (in the budget) is surprising.”
Analysts at the Bruegel Institute, who, incidentally, drafted the militaristic EU budget proposal, approve of the fact that “appropriations for agriculture and cohesion policy will be reduced in relative terms” and that defence and energy interconnection will also receive more funding, as will “global actions” (external spending).
“These changes are positive but insufficient,” the planners of the EU’s militaristic strategy say, insisting on further increases in military spending.
