EU: EU budget for 2027 is in place – almost 200 billion euros are planned

The EU Parliament and the member states negotiate the budget for the coming year until early morning. Now there is an agreement - but not in a major budget dispute.

Brussels. The EU budget next year is expected to be almost 200 billion euros. Negotiators from the EU Parliament and the member states agreed in Brussels that a total of around 199.7 billion euros can be budgeted for 2027, as the EU countries announced after negotiations in Brussels until early this morning.

The agreement will ensure that the agreed policies and programs can be implemented in 2027. It secures the EU's ability to act in the face of ongoing crises and challenges, for example in Ukraine and the Middle East, it said. This budget also makes it possible to react to unforeseen developments. This year's EU budget is around 190 billion euros.

The agreement still has to be officially confirmed by the EU states and the European Parliament, but this is considered a formality.

The Commission had suggested slightly more

The agreement is based on a proposal from the European Commission, which proposed a budget of 199.9 billion euros for the coming year. According to the Brussels authority, priorities should include the competitiveness of the international community, security and defense and support for Ukraine.

Plan part of the long-term community budget

The plan for the coming year is the seventh and last within the framework of the so-called Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for the period 2021 to 2027. A rough order of magnitude has already been specified. The joint budget for the seven years total amounts to around 1.1 trillion euros. It comes largely from contributions from the Member States. As the Union's largest net contributor, Germany contributes almost a quarter of the funds, but at the same time benefits greatly from the EU internal market.

A new multi-year budget from 2028 to 2034 is currently being debated in Brussels. The EU countries want to come to an agreement by the end of the year - but this is considered extremely ambitious, as the positions of the member states are still very far apart. A proposal worth 1.826 trillion euros for the seven-year period is currently on the table. Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) rejects this as unacceptable and instead calls for cuts of several hundred billion.