Written by Sidonia Mazur.
Updated on 17.07.2025.
The 2025 EU budget includes an overall net increase of almost €24.6 million above the draft budget, including amending letter (AL) 1/2025. On its main political priority programmes, Parliament obtained reinforcements of over €230.7 million. The European Union Recovery Instrument (EURI) special instrument is mobilised for the first time, allocating an additional €1.14 billion to the budget line for the Next Generation EU (NGEU) package borrowing costs.
Background – 2025 budget procedure
The annual EU budget funds the EU policies and programmes that translate the Union’s political priorities and legal obligations into action. On 19 June 2024, the European Commission adopted its statement of estimates for the 2025 financial year. On 12 July 2024, the Commission formally adopted the 2025 draft budget (DB 2025), with an overall volume of €199.7 billion in commitment appropriations (CA) and €152.7 billion in payment appropriations (PA), including special instruments.
The European Parliament is one of the two arms of the European Union’s budgetary authority, the Council being the other. The two institutions, assisted by the European Commission, decide on the budget in the annual EU budget procedure, within the limits of the long-term EU budget – the multiannual financial framework (MFF).
On 13 March 2024, the Parliament adopted its Guidelines for the 2025 budget, calling for ‘a people-centred EU budget 2025’, with ‘investments tailored to improving people’s lives and boosting the Union’s competitiveness’.
Parliament’s general rapporteur for the 2025 EU budget, Victor Negrescu (S&D, Romania), pointed out that the social dimension of EU spending had been neglected for too long and that it should continue to be a cross-cutting criterion for all policy areas and spending decisions.
On 13 September, the Council adopted its position on the 2025 draft budget, proposing to cut commitments by €1.52 billion and payments by €876 million across the MFF headings.
On 7 October, the Committee on Budgets (BUDG) adopted amendments to the Council’s position, and on 14 October it adopted an explanatory motion for a resolution. The committee set the overall level of commitments at almost €201 billion and payments at €153.5 billion.
The BUDG committee restored appropriations to the draft 2025 budget levels on all lines cut by the Council. Moreover, it proposed specific increases for programmes and initiatives, including: Horizon Europe, the Connecting Europe Facility, Digital Europe, Support for SMEs, EU4Health, Erasmus, Creative Europe, young farmers, the common agricultural policy, the LIFE programme, the Union Civil Protection Mechanism, the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund, the Border Management and Visa Instrument, the Internal Security Fund, the Southern Neighbourhood, the Eastern Neighbourhood and humanitarian aid.
Concerning the ‘overrun costs’ of borrowing for the NGEU recovery fund (i.e. interest costs exceeding amounts already programmed), in line with the provisions in the revised MFF, BUDG proposed to finance a bigger share (65 %) from the newly established EURI special instrument above the MFF ceilings. This approach is aimed at preventing reductions in allocations for priority budget lines such as Horizon Europe, Erasmus+ and EU4Health.
On 23 October 2024, Parliament amended the Council’s position on the draft 2025 budget on the basis of the report by the Committee on Budgets (BUDG). Parliament’s President therefore convened the Conciliation Committee seeking to reach a compromise between Parliament and the Council. The accompanying motion for a resolution agreed by BUDG was rejected in plenary due to a controversy relating to amendments adopted on migration policy issues.
On 16 November, the Conciliation Committee (composed of a delegation of 27 Members of Parliament and 27 Member State representatives) reached a provisional agreement on the 2025 budget. The Council endorsed the joint text on 25 November 2024, confirming the provisional agreement reached during conciliation.
On 9 July 2025, Parliament approved the Council position on Draft amending budget No 1/2025 (DAB 1/2025). Its adoption means entering a €1.35 billion surplus from the implementation of the 2024 budget as revenue into the 2025 budget. Including this surplus leads to a corresponding reduction in Member States’ gross national income (GNI) contributions to the 2025 budget.
On 4 July 2025, the Commission adopted Draft amending budget 2/2025 (DAB 2/2025), increasing the EU’s 2025 budget by €3.3 million in commitments and €3.5 billion in payments.
Next steps
Parliament and the Council will process DAB 2/2025 in autumn 2025.
Further reading
- For key issues regarding the EU budget, see the EPRS flagship publication: Budgetary Outlook for the European Union 2025
- For more on the adoption of the 2025 EU budget, see: Adoption of the European Union’s 2025 budget
- For more on DAB1/2025, see: Draft amending budget No 1/2025: 2024 surplus
- For more on Parliament’s reading of the 2025 budget, see: Parliament’s reading of the 2025 EU budget
- For more on Parliament’s role in the EU annual budgetary procedure, see: Annual EU budgetary procedure: An introduction to the steps in the European Parliament
- For Parliament’s guidelines for the 2025 budget, see: Parliament’s guidelines for the 2025 EU budget. Section III – European Commission
- For more on the MFF amendments, see: Revision of the EU’s long-term budget for 2021 to 2027: Securing sufficient resources for the EU
- For more on the reform of EU own resources, see: System of own resources of the European Union
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