{"id":1063600,"date":"2026-07-02T11:17:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T11:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1063600\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T11:17:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T11:17:18","slug":"one-bigger-eu-budget-beats-27-national-ones-serafin-tells-frugal-states-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1063600\/","title":{"rendered":"One bigger EU budget beats 27 national ones, Serafin tells frugal states\u00a0 \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"

EU budget commissioner Piotr Serafin told the bloc\u2019s so-called \u2018frugal\u2019 member states to rethink their push for a smaller seven-year budget, saying that a one large budget packs more punch that 27 smaller ones.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody would argue that 27 earth observation systems would be a better idea than Copernicus, or would be better off developing its own satellite system instead of having Galileo,\u201d Serafin said in his opening speech at the European Commission\u2019s annual budget conference on Thursday (2 July).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Less spending at the EU level doesn\u2019t translate to less spending overall, just \u201cmore national spending,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

His remarks come as Germany, the Netherlands and other net payers including Austria, Denmark and Sweden, press the incoming Irish presidency<\/a> of the EU Council to cut the bloc\u2019s next seven-year budget far more deeply than Cyprus proposed.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Germany proposed<\/a> cutting the commission\u2019s proposed \u20ac2 trillion budget by roughly \u20ac400bn \u2014 about a fifth. That is ten times the size of the roughly two-percent trim in Cyprus\u2019s negotiating box.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Serafin tried to turn the frugals\u2019 own thrift against them by saying that a smaller EU budget does not automatically mean a cheaper one for taxpayers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe alternative to European spending is more national spending,\u201d he said, adding that defence, energy security and research \u201cwill have to be financed one way or another.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doing so separately “means a higher bill, more duplication, and fewer economies of scale,\u201d he also said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Case in point, he said, was the EU’s Horizon research programme<\/a>, set to rise from around \u20ac90bn in the current budget to \u20ac175bn under the commission’s 2028-2034 proposal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EU budget commissioner Piotr Serafin told the bloc\u2019s so-called \u2018frugal\u2019 member states to rethink their push for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1063601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[217083,2000,299,5187,248841,263040,263038,248839,263039,248840],"class_list":["post-1063600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-typedefinedterm","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-identifier4406","tag-identifier4663","tag-nameeu-budget","tag-nameeu-politics","tag-termcodeeu-budget","tag-termcodeeu-politics"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116850109323017956","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1063600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1063601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1063600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1063600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1063600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}