The European Commission last July proposed spending around €104 billion on administration in the next budget cycle, including 2,500 additional civil service posts
Much of the debate around the EU’s next long-term budget centres on competitiveness, defence and agriculture. Austria, however, has another target in mind – and that is the cost the EU’s administration and bureaucracy.
“I am fully aware that this is not the largest budget item overall, and this criticism is often dismissed – but every little saving helps,” Austria’s Europe Minister Claudia Bauer told Euractiv ahead of budget talks in Luxembourg and Brussels this week.
The argument is part of Austria’s push for deeper cuts to the EU’s 2028–2034 budget. While acknowledging that drafting the Cyprus presidency’s ‘negotiating box’ must have been very challenging, Bauer dismissed the proposed 2% reduction to the European Commission’s €1.76 trillion spending plan as “a droplet on a hot stone,” equivalent to the English idiom a “drop in the ocean”.
The Commission last July proposed spending around €104 billion on administration in the next budget cycle, including 2,500 additional civil service posts.
