Draft amending budget 1/2025: surplus of the financial year 2024

The European Parliament adopted by 534 votes to 102, with 56 abstentions, a resolution on the Council position on Draft amending budget No 1/2025 of the European Union for the financial year 2025 entering the surplus of the financial year 2024.

Parliament took note of Draft Amending Budget No 1/2025 presented by the Commission, which aims to include in the 2025 budget the surplus resulting from the implementation of the 2024 financial year, which amounts to EUR 1 345 million.

It welcomed the fact that the 2024 surplus is driven primarily by an increase in the variation in Title 4 (Financial revenue, default interest and fines), while the surplus of expenditure remains very modest at EUR 273 million.

Members regretted that the budgeting of the surplus reduces the total GNI-based own resources contribution of Member States to the financing of the 2025 budget by a commensurate amount at a time when financing needs remain high, in particular for the EURI ‘overrun’ costs, and room for manoeuvre within the Union budget remains extremely limited.

The Commission is invited to design a sound and durable architecture for the next multiannual financial framework that enables sustainable management of all non-discretionary costs and liabilities, fully preserving Union programmes and the budget’s flexibility and response capacity, in particular as regards natural disasters and health emergencies.

Members recalled their long-standing position that windfall gains stemming from fines and fees, or equivalent amounts thereof, should be used as supplementary revenue for the Union budget for purposes of crisis response or unexpected needs and should not lead to a corresponding decrease in GNI-based contributions.

Parliament noted the negative income item under the new Article 425, amounting to EUR 534 million to incorporate costs for the budget stemming from payment made under settlement agreement entailing compensatory interest and default interest compensation related to the repayment of annulled or reduced competition fines. Given that this solution comes to an end on 31 December 2027, it called on the Commission to propose a definitive solution for the next multiannual financial framework that achieves the same objective of avoiding any impact on the expenditure side of the budget.

Members deplored the Council's lack of progress on reforming the own resources system and called for swift adoption of the Commission's proposals to diversify available own resources. They encouraged the Commission to identify new, innovative own resources, which are essential for repaying borrowing under NextGenerationEU and for covering the EU's increased spending needs in an uncertain geopolitical context.

On the basis of these considerations, Parliament approved the Council's position on draft amending budget No 1/2025.