Every seven years, the European Union falls into a wide-ranging squabble over money. The Multiannual Financial Framework, commonly known as the EU budget, pits the 27 member states, their national interests, and need for cash against one another, complete with unpleasant mudslinging over who’s a profligate financial leech, whose elites are siphoning off the money for themselves, and who is breaking international law.
The latest budget cycle, under discussion now, is little different. But Eurocrats in Brussels are quietly confident that the scale of the threats facing the bloc, from underfunded security to national budget crises, will finally loosen the purse strings but also bring a hitherto evasive sense of political maturity and potential unity. European federalists hope it will leave the EU better equipped to face the next decade.
Every seven years, the European Union falls into a wide-ranging squabble over money. The Multiannual Financial Framework, commonly known as the EU budget, pits the 27 member states, their national interests, and need for cash against one another, complete with unpleasant mudslinging over who’s a profligate financial leech, whose elites are siphoning off the money for themselves, and who is breaking international law.
The latest budget cycle, under discussion now, is little different. But Eurocrats in Brussels are quietly confident that the scale of the threats facing the bloc, from underfunded security to national budget crises, will finally loosen the purse strings but also bring a hitherto evasive sense of political maturity and potential unity. European federalists hope it will leave the EU better equipped to face the next decade.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, recently put forward an eye-watering proposal of nearly 2 trillion euros for the 2028-2034 budget cycle. It would be the biggest multiyear budget ever approved in the bloc’s history, and, if spent effectively, could go some way to helping the Brussels machinery achieve its long-held ambition of that can go toe-to-toe with the United States and China. By comparison, the total amount agreed in 2021 for the current cycle was just 1.2 trillion euros in current prices.
Of those 2 trillion euros, 451 billion euros are earmarked for the unassumingly named “Competitiveness Fund,” which proposes 175 billion euros on scientific research, 131 billion euros for defense and space, and a further 144 billion euros in other key areas of international competition, including digital leadership, healthcare, agriculture, and green initiatives.
The proposal suggests 200 billion euros for boosting the EU’s interests around the globe, be that international security, crisis response, or promotion of the rule of law. Within that pot is 100 billion euros for Ukraine, a country that hopes to join the bloc soon.
Washington and Beijing should be taking note: There is serious intent here. Putting these amounts of money behind these initiatives could transform the EU into something that more closely resembles the kind of federalized superpower of which many in Brussels have dreamed.
Some in D.C. may see these figures and wonder what the big deal is. On defense, for example, the United States spends many multiples of the proposed European figure each year. The same is true in many other areas, like scientific research and agriculture.
There are two rebuttals to that. The first is that the EU budget is not the total sum of what will ultimately be spent in each of these areas. The EU itself has a number of separate financial schemes, grants, and loans for specific projects outside of the centralized budget—and that’s before considering the unilateral spending of member states, which in many cases will be significantly higher than what would be considered EU money. For context, the combined total defense spending of EU member states that are also in NATO was over $450 billion in 2025, according to numbers published by the alliance.
The second is the EU’s . It’s a term that comes up frequently in conversations with EU diplomats these days. “The cohesion stuff has to happen,” one diplomat, speaking anonymously in order to speak candidly, told me last week. “We want to see the overall figure come down. Two trillion euros is too high. But the group of realists and pragmatists is growing. To address the bigger stuff as a whole, we need cohesion.”
This was echoed by multiple other officials in Brussels. “With Germany and France looking as weak as they are, the smaller nations who are realistic are clubbing together,” another official said, referring to far-right gains in Germany and France’s looming presidential election. They added that if the ultra-Europhile is replaced by a Euroskecptic and, wants to secure this Brussels-centric budget as part of his legacy, “even France (historically profligate) will probably join the so-called frugal” to get a meaningful budget approved.
Cohesion is typically a fancy way of saying that poorer nations and regions need a significant boost to benefit the entire bloc and its unity. Few things entice voters to flirt with Euroskeptic populists and resent the Brussels elites than the sense that their poverty is going unnoticed by wealthy counterparts.
In 2026, that leveling up is about more than economics. The threat Russian President Vladimir Putin poses to the bloc is unprecedented and existential. Many European countries are radically unprepared for actual war with Moscow. A military defeat of any country that is a member of the EU, NATO, or both would ask questions of institutions and allies that were once unthinkable, and that in the age of U.S. President Donald Trump might lead to unpleasant answers. In short, the only way Europeans can be sure of their own security is to rally together and work as a cohesive unit in continental security, meaning reliance on the U.S. eventually becomes a thing of the past.
Trump’s own single-mindedness on things like artificial intelligence, climate change, free trade, and more is widely seen as a threat to a Europe that is terrified of being dominated or subservient to America. If Brussels can centrally coordinate ways for all regions to benefit from digital programs that make Europe more competitive, or less reliant on external energy sources, for example, cohesion suddenly sounds less like a sound bite and more like self-determination.
Of course, there will be Euroskeptic challenges to any suggestions that national budgets should be spent on policies determined, even in part, by the supranational institutions in Brussels. This will be especially true in areas where it affects national security and job creation. The EU’s leadership must walk on eggshells if it is to get such a huge budget and coordinate the transformation of such an important economic and geographic bloc.
Approving such a huge sum is also contentious within the EU’s institutions themselves. Many factions within the EU’s parliament are deeply skeptical when it comes to the executive branch of the EU spending their taxpayers’ money. That’s before even getting into the domestic political scene of each member state—where Euroskepticism is often used for cheap political point-scoring.
Ceding more power to Brussels might not feel like independence to all Europeans,. That’s another debate for later down the line. But if the commission gets the money, cohesion, and politics it wants, Europe could finally stop choosing between Washington and Beijing—and start making its own rules.
