site.btaProposed EU Budget to Reach EUR 2 Trillion in 2028-2034 Cycle

The European Commission proposed a EUR 2 trillion seven-year budget for 2028-2034, Commissioner for Budget, Anti-Fraud and Public Administration Piotr Serafin told the European Parliament’s Budget Committee on Wednesday. The plan aims to provide greater flexibility to deal with current and future challenges.

Serafin said the draft would allow straightforward access to every euro in the package and ensure the money was spent on what Europeans wanted most. He noted that the Union needed the capacity to meet unforeseen costs.

He warned that member states breaching the rule of law would not receive EU funds. The proposal called for a tenfold rise in spending on military mobility and a threefold increase for border security.

The draft earmarked EUR 300 billion for agriculture and EUR 2 billion for fisheries. Social policies accounted for 14% of the total, while EUR 218 billion went to the least developed regions.

It set a fivefold rise in funding to strengthen defence competitiveness and civil protection and allocated EUR 81 billion for connecting infrastructure.

To finance the package, the EU would rely on new own resources, Serafin said. Options included extra taxes on tobacco products, higher corporate taxation and levies on electronic waste.

The European Parliament’s Budget Committee circulated its position, calling the proposal "insufficient" and warning that cuts to flagship programmes would be inevitable.