The Council of the European Union has approved the EU's provisional 2025 budget.
The European Parliament settled on a provisional budget for 2025 on 16 November. MEPs will debate the text on Tuesday and hold a vote on Wednesday. The Council of the EU is an institution and intergovernmental body attended by Member States' ambassadors, ministers or heads of government.
For 2025, the EU's budget amounts to nearly €200 billion in commitments, approximately €10 billion more than this year. The increase is primarily to cover rising interest rates.
"Next year’s budget will allow us to focus on the EU's priority areas, while ensuring a prudent and realistic approach to spending taxpayers’ money," said Péter Banai, Hungarian Minister of State and chief Council negotiator for the 2025 EU budget.
"We have kept enough financial margin to respond to unforeseen circumstances, taking into account the current economic and geopolitical context," Banai concluded.
The text was approved by a qualified majority, despite abstentions from the Netherlands, Austria, Finland and Denmark and opposition from Sweden. Known as "frugal" Member States, these countries believe the EU is not exercising enough caution in response to rising interest rates.
Nevertheless, negotiators claim they have ensured that loans taken out during the post-Covid-19 recovery period can be repaid while preserving funding for essential programmes such as Erasmus+ and research and innovation.
The EU budget is the equivalent of just over 1% of the combined GDP of all EU Member States, comparable to the budget of Denmark.
