Ireland proposes 8% cut to EU’s 2028-2034 budget plan

Ireland, which holds the European Union’s rotating presidency, proposed on Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026, to cut the European Commission’s 2028-2034 budget plan by 8 per cent, or 141 billion euros, setting up a clash with member states and the European Parliament before EU leaders meet in Brussels on Oct. 15 and 16.

The reduced text would still total about 1.62 trillion euros in 2025 prices, roughly 30 per cent more than the current 2021-2027 budget, according to Reuters and Euronews. The Commission had asked for close to two trillion euros, and every one of the 27 member states must agree to the final figure.

The Irish paper is a “negotiating box,” the document a presidency uses to frame talks among governments. Thomas Byrne, Ireland’s minister of state for European affairs, said it moves the bloc closer to resolving the “budgetary trilemma,” meaning how to pay for new priorities such as defence, security and competitiveness while still funding farm and regional policy, Reuters reported.

The cuts are uneven. Cohesion, agriculture and fisheries, the largest block, would fall 3 per cent to 914 billion euros, according to Euronews. Competitiveness, research and defence would fall 13 per cent to 456 billion euros, and Global Europe, the budget for cooperation with other countries, would fall 17 per cent to 157 billion euros. EU administration would fall 8.8 per cent to 95 billion euros.

On the revenue side, the text keeps new EU-level income that Euronews and Reuters estimate at about 55 billion euros a year. It raises the share of proceeds from the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, the EU’s levy on the carbon content of certain imports, that goes to the EU budget from 75 per cent to 90 per cent, according to Euronews. Three levies the European Parliament had proposed, on digital services, online gambling and crypto assets, are left out. Euronews said they would be worth up to 32 billion euros a year.

The reaction suggests nobody is satisfied. Sweden’s EU affairs minister, Jessica Rosencrantz, called the proposal “wildly unaffordable” in a post on X, as reported by both Reuters and Euronews. Reuters also reported that Dutch Finance Minister Eelco Heinen said the Netherlands could not accept it. Germany leads a group of fiscally cautious countries that wants the Commission’s plan cut by “several hundred billions,” Euronews reported.

On the other side, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni leads a 17-member group called the Friends of Cohesion that wants to protect farm and poorer-region money, according to Euronews. Irish farm organizations also warned that the farm envelope sits well below current spending, EUalive reported.

The European Parliament, which must also consent to the budget, rejected the text as a starting point. Reuters reported that lawmakers, who want a 10 per cent increase on the Commission’s proposal, said it would weaken Europe. The Parliament’s official account said “cuts that weaken Europe will not get our consent,” according to EUalive, which also named co-rapporteurs Siegfried Muresan and Carla Tavares as arguing that real purchasing power would fall by about 10 per cent compared with the current budget.

The figures differ by source because of price bases. Reuters gave a headline of 1.6 trillion euros, and EUalive put the total at about 1.83 trillion euros in current prices. We use the 2025-price figure that Euronews and EUalive both report.

The Canadian connection is indirect. Canada does not contribute to the EU budget, but the higher carbon-border share is a revenue measure tied to goods that Canadian exporters ship to Europe. As we reported on Oct. 9, the levy is already drawing scrutiny from trading partners. The budget also shapes the money behind EU defence and competitiveness policy, which is the context for the debate over Canada’s place in “Made in Europe” rules. We did not find a Canadian government statement on the Irish proposal.

Ambassadors discussed the text on Sunday, the General Affairs Council, which prepares the summit, meets on Oct. 13, and leaders take it up at the European Council on Oct. 15 and 16, according to the Council of the EU’s forward look. A political agreement is still targeted before the end of 2026, Euronews reported, and Spain’s snap election on Nov. 29 now falls in the middle of the talks.

Via Reuters, Euronews and EUalive. We did not read the Irish presidency’s text itself.

If you find reporting like this useful, consider supporting Canada News Media, an independent Canadian newsroom with no corporate parent.