Brussels, 19 June 2024
The Commission has today proposed an annual EU budget of €199.7 billion for 2025. The budget will be complemented by an estimated €72 billion of disbursements under NextGenerationEU. This substantial financial envelope will support the EU in meeting its political priorities while integrating the changes agreed in the mid-term revision of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) in February 2024.
The draft budget 2025 directs funds to where they can make the greatest difference, in cooperation and in line with the needs of the EU Member States and our partners around the world to make Europe more resilient and fit for the future to the benefit of EU citizens and businesses. This will be done by fostering the green and digital transitions, by creating jobs while strengthening Europe’s strategic autonomy and global role. It will enable support to key critical technologies through the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP).
The draft budget 2025 will also provide – in line with the MFF mid-term revision – continued support for Syrian refugees in Türkiye and the wider region, the Southern Neighbourhood including the external dimension of migration, as well as the Western Balkans. Crucially, it will provide stable and predictable support to Ukraine.
The Commission proposes to allocate the following amounts to the various EU priorities (in commitments):
- €53.8 billion for the Common Agricultural Policy and €0.9 billion for the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund, for Europe’s farmers and fishers, but also to strengthen the resilience of the agri-food and fisheries sectors and to provide the necessary scope for crisis management.
- €49.2 billion for regional development and cohesion to support economic, social and territorial cohesion, as well as infrastructure supporting the green transition and Union priority projects.
- €16.3 billion to support our partners and interests in the world, of which, among others, €10.9 billion under the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument — Global Europe (NDICI — Global Europe), €2.2 billion for the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA III) and €0.5 billion for the Growth Facility for the Western Balkans, as well as €1.9 billion for Humanitarian Aid (HUMA).
- A further €4.3 billion will be available in grants under the Ukraine Facility complemented by €10.9billion in loans.
- €13.5 billion for research and innovation, of which mainly €12.7 billion for Horizon Europe, the Union’s flagship research programme. The Draft Budget also includes the financing of the European Chips Act under Horizon Europe and through redeployment from other programmes.
- €4.6 billion for European strategic investments, of which, for instance, €2.8 billion for the Connecting Europe Facility to improve cross-border infrastructure, €1.1 billion for the Digital Europe Programme to shape the Union’s digital future, and €378 million for InvestEU for key priorities (research and innovation, twin green and digital transition, the health sector, and strategic technologies).
- €2.1 billion for spending dedicated to space, mainly for the European Space Programme, which will bring together the Union’s action in this strategic field.
- €11.8 billion for resilience and values, of which, among others, €5.2 billion for the rising borrowing costs for NGEU, €4 billion Erasmus+ to create education and mobility opportunities for people, €352 million to support artists and creators around Europe, and €235 million to promote justice, rights, and values.
- €2.4 billion for environment and climate action, of which mainly €771 million for the LIFE programme to support climate change mitigation and adaptation, and €1.5 billion for the Just Transition Fund to make sure that the green transition works for all.
- €2.7 billion for protecting our borders, of which mainly €1.4 billion for the Integrated Border Management Fund (IBMF), and €997 million (total EU contribution) for the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex).
- €2.1 billion for migration-related spending within the EU, of which mainly €1.9 billion to support migrants and asylum-seekers in line with our values and priorities.
- €1.8 billion to address defence challenges, of which mainly €1.4 billion to support capability development and research under the European Defence Fund (EDF) and €244.5 million to support Military Mobility.
- €977 million to ensure the functioning of the Single Market, including €613 million for the Single Market Programme, and €205 million for work on anti-fraud, taxation, and customs.
- €583 million for EU4Health to ensure a comprehensive health response to people’s needs, as well as €203 million to the Union Civil Protection Mechanism (rescEU) to be able deploy operational assistance quickly in case of a crisis.
- €784 million for security, of which, notably, €334 million for the Internal Security Fund (ISF), which will combat terrorism, radicalisation, organised crime, and cybercrime.
- €196 million for secure satellite connections under the new Union Secure Connectivity Programme.
The draft budget for 2025 is part of the Union’s long-term budget as adopted at the end of 2020 and as amended in February 2024, including subsequent technical adjustments, and seeks to turn its priorities into concrete annual deliverables.
The annual budget for 2025 will have to be formally adopted by the Budgetary Authority before the end of the year.
Background
The draft EU budget for 2025 includes the expenditure covered by the appropriations under the long-term budget ceilings, financed from own resources. These are topped up by expenditure under NextGenerationEU, financed from borrowing on the capital markets. For the “core” budget, two amounts for each programme are proposed in the draft budget – commitments and payments. “Commitments” refer to the funding that can be agreed in contracts in a given year; and “payments” to the money actually paid out. All amounts are in current prices.
More information
Questions and Answers on draft annual budget 2025
All EU annual budget documents
Revision of the EU budget 2021-2027
Quote(s)
The EU budget continues to provide Europe with the means to tackle current and future challenges, notably by supporting the green and digital transitions and increasing the Union’s overall resilience. We have also been able to strengthen our position externally: the mid-term revision of the MFF was essential to enable our Union to respond to the consequences of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine on a stable footing, reinforce our capacity to respond to natural disasters and deliver answers to the global competition on key critical technologies.
Johannes Hahn, Commissioner for Budget and Administration
Source – EU Commission
Eu Commission Q&A on the draft annual budget 2025
Brussels, 19 June 2024
How is the Mid-Term Revision of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2021-2027 reflected in the draft budget 2025?
The Commission’s proposal on the draft budget 2025 reflects the mid-term revision of the expenditure ceilings in the MFF equipping the EU budget with the necessary means to keep delivering on the priorities for the EU.
In particular, the revision restores the Union’s financial capacity to address a series of exceptional challenges:
- Creation of the Ukraine Facilityas a collective response to Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified war of aggression against Ukraine;
- Introduction of additional financing to face the continued migratory pressuresand their root causes, while responding to the impact of the crisis in the Middle East;
- Reinforcement of the Union’s capacity to respond to natural disasters, with increased funding for the EU Solidarity Fund and for the Emergency Aid Reserve;
- Strengthen of the EU’s strategic autonomy and defence capabilitieswithin the framework of the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP);
- Introduction of a new mechanism for the financing of the cost of the NextGenerationEU (NGEU) borrowing.
The Draft Budget 2025 and the accompanying financial programming 2026-2027 provide a detailed breakdown of the reinforcements and reductions agreed in the MFF revision. In particular, the financial programming document includes dedicated new tables for the period as a whole, while the draft budget presents the specific impact on the year 2025.
How does the draft budget for 2025 relate to NGEU?
NGEU provides the EU budget with additional means providing extraordinary support to investments and reforms across the Union, notably through the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). Additionally, with REPowerEU, the financial means of the RRF have been strengthened to accelerate the EU energy resilience in response to the energy challenges emerging from Russia’s war of aggression. REPowerEU chapters complement the Recovery and Resilience Plans of the Member States, to strengthen the collective effort to end Europe’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels and to accelerate the green transition.
While NGEU commitments were frontloaded in the budget in the years 2021 to 2023, NGEU implementation continues until the end of 2026, with large-scale disbursements providing significant support to the EU economy.
To finance NGEU, the Commission is borrowing up to €712 billion on the capital markets until end 2026. To obtain the necessary funding under optimal financial terms, the Commission uses a unified funding approach. The funds are disbursed via grants or loans, either through the RRF or through several EU budget programmes which have received top-ups from NGEU. As of today (19 June 2024), the Commission has disbursed more than €240 billion to EU countries under the RRF, on top of further support to other EU programmes benefitting from NGEU funding (€40.9 billion as of end-December 2023).
What are commitments and payments?
Commitments are the total volume of contractual obligations for future payments that can be made in a given year. Commitments must then be honoured with payments, either in the same year or, particularly in the case of multi-annual projects, over the following years.
Payments are the actual money paid in a given year from the EU budget to cover commitments of current and previous years.
When the EU decides to co-fund the building of a bridge, the total amount which the EU agrees to cover is a commitment. The bills for the work done are the payments that are paid over the coming years in line with the implementation life cycle of the project. The commitment is made in year N. The payments from the EU budget may follow in the same year N, but also in following years, depending on the financial rules on when the invoices are reimbursed.
How will the new instrument for the borrowing costs for NextGenerationEU work?
In light of the increase of interest rates since 2022, a new ‘cascade mechanism’ will be put in place to cover the additional costs for the NGEU interest payments. It includes several steps to finance the additional costs, by making use of availabilities to redirect existing funding within the budget, mobilising special instruments within the long-term budget, and the mobilisation of a new and exceptional instrument over and above the MFF ceilings if financing for the interest payments cannot be found within the existing EU budget.
In the draft budget, the Commission proposes to finance the cost overrun for the borrowing costs through a combination of the unallocated margin in heading 2b (resilience and values), the Flexibility Instrument and the EURI instrument for the remaining amount, which is fully covered by past decommitments. Therefore, there is no need to recourse to the so-called ‘financial backstop’.
More information
- Press release on draft annual budget 2025
- All Annual EU budget documents
- Annual budget procedure
- 2021-2027 long-term EU budget & NextGenerationEU
- EU budget in motion
- EU as a borrower
Annual EU budget documentation
The documents related to each phase of the EU annual budget: adoption (draft and adopted budgets, amendment letters), implementation (amending budgets), and accounting (annual accounts, reports, and the European Parliament’s discharge).
2025 – The documents related to the adoption, implementation and accounting of the 2025 EU annual budget.
2024 – The documents related to the adoption, implementation and accounting of the 2024 EU annual budget.
2023 – The documents related to the adoption, implementation and accounting of the 2023 EU annual budget.
2022 – The documents related to the adoption, implementation and accounting of the 2022 EU annual budget.
2021 – The documents related to the adoption, implementation and accounting of the 2021 EU annual budget.
2020 – The documents related to the adoption, implementation and accounting of the 2020 EU annual budget.
2019 – The documents related to the adoption, implementation and accounting of the 2019 EU annual budget.
2018 – The documents related to the adoption, implementation and accounting of the 2018 EU annual budget.
2017 – The documents related to the adoption, implementation and accounting of the 2017 EU annual budget.
2016 – The documents related to the adoption, implementation and accounting of the 2016 EU annual budget.
2015 – The documents related to the adoption, implementation and accounting of the 2015 EU annual budget.
2014 – The documents related to the adoption, implementation and accounting of the 2014 EU annual budget.
Pre-2014 – Information on EU annual budgets before 2014.