Parliament sets the floor on EU own resources. Now Member States must raise the ceiling.
“We welcome the European Parliament’s firm commitment to agree on a new own resources package totalling at least €60 billion per year. The Parliament reiterated what has long been obvious: without a modernised and diversified revenue base, adopted at the same time as the long-term budget, there is no credible financing of the EU’s priorities, both old and new.
If the EU is serious about financing its priorities and repaying its common debt, new own resources are no longer optional. Member States cannot ask the EU budget to do more while blocking the means to finance it. Five years of Council paralysis is a political choice, and its cost is real: without genuine new revenue streams, the burden will fall on ordinary taxpayers and on the EU’s capacity to act.
The Commission’s proposal is a good start, but will only be credible if governments now agree on a broader basket of new own resources, consistent with Europe’s social, environmental and external action objectives.
A more secure, more competitive and more strategic Europe needs a set of own resources that matches its ambition. The Union cannot afford a chronically underfinanced budget as it navigates an era of geopolitical turbulence and energy insecurity. Member States must consider modern, fit-for-purpose revenue sources, including contributions from the profits of the fossil fuel industry, from premium aviation, and from extreme wealth.”
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Notes to Editors
The MFF Hub is an informal network that rallies efforts to increase financing for development, humanitarian help and global climate action in the next MFF, including through new own resources.
The European Commission's proposal on new own resources would raise, according to EC estimations, €58.2 billion per year: €33 billion from three new own resources (non-collected e-waste, tobacco excise duty and annual lump-sum contribution from companies); €11 billion from already proposed own resources (ETS and CBAM); €14.3 billion from adjustments to current own resources. The revenues will be used to repay the Next Generation EU loans (€25 billion per year) and the additional cost of the EU budget.
The European Parliament’s Interim Report:
Calls for new genuine own resources generating at least €60 billion per year as an essential condition for an ambitious MFF 2028–2034;
Demands that any basket element eliminated by the Council be replaced with an equivalent revenue source;
States that Parliament will only approve an MFF that includes appropriate and sustainable revenue fit for purpose;
Encourages the consideration of potential alternative own resources including a digital services levy aimed at major digital platforms, an online gambling and betting services levy, the extension of Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, and a levy based on a uniform call rate on capital gains from crypto assets.
