The Finance Ministers of the EU Member States held talks in Luxembourg on Friday 10 October on the proposed adoption of five new own resources to be added to the EU budget.
Twenty-one Member States have set out their position, with the exception of Denmark, which is bound to neutrality as the Presidency of the EU Council until the end of December 2025.
Four of these Member States – Ireland, Sweden and Finland, which are net contributors, and Hungary – have rejected outright any introduction of new own resources, with Sweden recommending better spending and taking the view that the current MFF will be sufficient to repay the loan for the post-Covid-19 recovery plan, Next Generation EU.
EU needs to replenish its coffers. According to the European Commission, in view of the various challenges, the EU has “no choice”. The countries’ commitment to NATO to invest 5% of their GDP in defence and security by 2035, investment in research and innovation to improve the EU’s competitiveness, stabilisation of spending on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and cohesion and repayment of the loan contracted with Next Generation EU leave no other option than to adopt new own resources. This observation did not prevent the European Commissioner for the Budget, Anti-Fraud and Public Administration, Piotr Serafin, from being lucid about the responses that the Member States were preparing to give: “Not many of you around this table will want to pay”.
And he wasn’t wrong. Only the (resigned) French Minister for the Economy, Roland Lescure, pointed out that the Member States will have to “tax to meet [their] commitments”, since at the June 2020 European Council, the Heads of State pledged to raise own resources to repay the Next Generation EU loan.
As a preamble to their speeches, many Member States pointed out that own resources must respect the principle of equity between countries and not encroach on national revenue (see EUROPE 13727/13).
At this stage, none of the five new own resources proposed by the European Commission has the unanimity that is required in order to be adopted.
To the rescue of businesses. Twelve Member States felt that the annual contribution from companies with a turnover of at least €100 million a year (CORE) could act as a brake on competitiveness. Four of them (Germany, Luxembourg, Malta and Bulgaria) have therefore expressed firm opposition. The European Commission has warned that the contribution will represent 0.1% of a company’s annual net turnover, but according to Portugal, this “risks sending a negative message [to businesses] that will result in a much greater impact”. Only Poland supported the idea.
Member States don’t want to be taken advantage of when it comes to tobacco. Own resources based on an excise duty on tobacco were the other proposal that was most attacked. Twelve Member States are holding back, and six of them resolutely against it (Italy, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Poland, Bulgaria and Slovenia). All of them put forward the same reason: it would “significantly” reduce their national revenues.
Electronic waste compared to “plastics” tax. Stating their opposition to the establishment of a resource based on uncollected electronic waste, Poland explained that the lack of harmonised statistical data would lead to problems that are similar to those encountered with the clean resource based on non-recycled plastic waste. In September 2024, a report by the European Court of Auditors pointed out that Member States’ recycling estimates were too low (see EUROPE 13483/2). Italy, the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Romania are also not in favour, since this would be to the detriment of the Member States.
CBAM is less troublesome. The clean resource based on the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), which has been planned for several years, has received the most support. Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia and Bulgaria are in favour, although Bulgaria did point out that it “won’t do much good”.
Customs duties and rebates. In addition, the reduction in the customs duty collection rate from 25% to 10% has met with opposition from Romania, Belgium, Slovenia and the Netherlands. The latter stated that customs had “more and more work to do”. Austria and France are supporting this proposal.
Finally, several net contributors (the Netherlands, Austria) have warned that they will oppose the abolition of the correction system, known as rebates, which allows net contributors such as the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Sweden and Denmark to obtain flat-rate reductions on their GNI contribution.
See the proposal on the European Union's own resources system: https://aeur.eu/f/iwx (Original version in French by Florent Servia)