The Brief – Von der Leyen's big budget moment ends in chaos

Euractiv

16-07-2025

A day of cancelled briefings, internal dissent, angry MEPs and confusion over the budget's biggest numbers: Commission President Ursula von der Leyen may very well have gone too far in her bold bid to re-think the EU project.
Fed up with a never-changing EU spending plan under the multiannual financial framework and emboldened by a dual defence and competitiveness crisis, von der Leyen has mobilised all her political savvy to break the status quo and centre the EU project on herself and the European Commission.
Since October , she has been socialising radical ideas for what the next EU budget could look like, and meticulously working behind closed doors on a setup to centralise power in a palatable form for key EU countries.
She overplayed her hand. In the critical moment to make her pitch, von der Leyen faced rebellion within her own Commission and did not appear to present her budget overhaul herself. A proposal was initially expected this morning, with briefings in parliament throughout the day. Instead, they failed to land final numbers, six commissioners rebelled against her funding plan, and Parliament briefings were repeatedly delayed or cancelled throughout the day.
'I have literally no idea what is going on,' Siegfried Mureșan, Parliament's budget co-lead from von der Leyen's own party, told Euractiv at midday.
At the time of writing, the Commission still hasn't provided its actual proposal, despite hours of speeches and presentations.
The curse of unanimity
Von der Leyen is asking a lot of the next budget. Breaking decades of precedent, the Commission wants to put around €900 billion into a megafund to use as leverage to implement EU-friendly reforms and a €410 billion European Competitiveness Fund for flexible industrial investments.
Farmers and regions face serious cuts, wildly unpopular with major recipients of such funds like Poland, Italy and Spain. On top of that, the Commission announced new EU-wide taxes on tobacco, carbon emissions and large companies, which may disproportionately burden many of the same countries.
Von der Leyen's play was bold, and she has already landed some wins. For starters, she's managed to get the two biggest players – Germany and France – to listen to her ideas.
On top of this, she has succeeded in setting the terms of the debate. With Europe in the clutch of so many crises – and found wanting on so many fronts – aligning behind a vision for a competitive continent that can withstand existential economic and security threats is a must.
But von der Leyen may have aimed too high. Not even managing to keep her own commissioners in check, she now faces a daunting task to get every single EU country and hundreds of MEPs onboard.
Parliament doesn't even want to start negotiations with the proposed ideas. A parliament source told Euractiv that Commission bureaucrats are fed up with her radical proposals, and that they eagerly await a chance to pick her proposal apart.
Ursula von der Leyen has successfully shaken up the budget debate. Now, we will see whether a Europe in crisis is ready to succumb to her vision, or if they reject her for going too far.
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