{"id":3066,"date":"2026-04-28T22:55:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T19:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=3066"},"modified":"2026-04-28T22:55:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T19:55:00","slug":"konstantinos-margaritis-in-manifesto-changes-to-the-eu-budget-do-not-contribute-to-its-improvement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=3066","title":{"rendered":"Konstantinos Margaritis in “Manifesto”: changes to the EU budget do not contribute to its improvement"},"content":{"rendered":"

The many important changes proposed by the European Commission<\/b> for the long-term budget of the EU<\/b> may not, after all, mean an improvement in the methods financing<\/b> and allocation of funds<\/b>, which will be applied to the implementation of EU policies and programmes from 2028 onwards<\/b>, according to the European Court of Auditors (ECA)<\/b>. <\/p>\n

As some aspects of the proposed arrangements radically change the way EU spending is planned, managed and controlled<\/b>, the ECA warns about the risks to sound financial management<\/b> and stresses the need for stronger safeguards. <\/p>\n

In a paper published summarising its concerns, the ECA again sounds the alarm to EU policymakers as they soon start negotiations to adopt the proposed budget of almost 2 trillion euro<\/b>. The European Commission is set to launch a new budget of \u20ac2.2 billion<\/b> for the period 2028-2034<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Since last January to date, the SCA has published twelve opinions<\/b> on the Commission’s proposals for the new Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF)<\/b>, in which he sets out his views on a wide range of areas, from competitiveness, research and culture to cohesion, agriculture and international support. <\/p>\n

“The legislative proposals for the next EU multiannual budget reveal that this time we are not dealing with business as usual, but with a serious overhaul<\/b>,” said Tony Murphy, President of the SCA. “As the guardian of EU finances, in the twelve opinions we issued on the Commission’s respective proposals we highlight the risks and challenges for the EU budget for the period 2028-2034. Many of the proposed changes do not guarantee that EU funds will be better spent in the future<\/b>,” concluded the SCA President.<\/p>\n

In July and September 2025, the Commission published several legislative proposals on the EU budget for the period 2028-2034. First, it proposed a financial envelope of almost \u20ac2 trillion<\/b>, which represents an increase of 59%<\/b> compared to the \u20ac1.2 trillion budget for the current period 2021-2027. <\/p>\n

Thereby, national contributions to the budget are expected to increase by 81%<\/b>, reaching \u20ac235 billion. To finance EU policies, its executive has proposed that the own revenue streams be increased from four to nine<\/b>. <\/p>\n

Including new resources based on uncollected waste electrical and electronic equipment, tobacco excise duties and a corporate resource for Europe.<\/p>\n

At the same time, it proposed a significant reduction, by 20 percentage points, of the share of EU funds implemented jointly with member states<\/b>. It also proposed a new large European Fund<\/b>, with a budget of 865 billion. \u20ac865 billion<\/b>, covering cohesion and agriculture, structured around a full national and regional partnership plan<\/b>, and a generous increase in funds to strengthen the EU’s defence industrial base and defence capabilities. <\/p>\n

In addition, a major shift towards non-cost linked financing<\/b> is proposed, while member states are given the option to finance their projects with reimbursable loans of up to 150 billion euros. <\/p>\n

The ECA warns that if the new revenue streams are not approved, there will be a serious budget deficit<\/b>, which will require either an increase in Member States’ contributions or a reduction in budgetary ambition. Moreover, it points out that the proposed borrowing would lead to a large increase in EU debt<\/b>. <\/p>\n

In terms of spending, the merger of different policies<\/b> could jeopardise the achievement of their objectives and force trade-offs between priorities. For large parts of the budget, the setting of spending priorities will be in the hands of the Member States, whose interests do not, of course, coincide.<\/p>\n

For example, a significant divergence in member states’ plans could weaken the alignment of agricultural spending with EU priorities<\/b>, distort competition and create an uneven playing field for farmers. Moreover, more flexibility should not mean more spending without ensuring better results at the same time. <\/p>\n

The proposed performance framework<\/b> is unfortunately not well designed, which does not allow for a measurement of the results<\/b> that EU spending delivers and the benefits that EU citizens ultimately derive from the resources they contribute.<\/p>\n

At the same time, for large parts of the budget, the mechanisms for ensuring that EU funds are well spent rely excessively on often weak oversight by Member States<\/b>. Stability and accountability are needed to ensure that EU funding is properly managed.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The many significant changes proposed by the European Commission for the EU’s long-term budget may not mean the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}