Parliament's estimates of revenue and expenditure for the financial year 2027
The European Parliament adopted by 401 votes to 116, with 68 abstentions, a resolution on Parliament’s estimates of revenue and expenditure for the financial year 2027.
The budget proposed by the Secretary-General for the Parliament’s preliminary draft estimates for 2027 amounts to EUR 2 665 474 853 and represents an increase of 2.33 % or EUR 60 618 266 compared to 2026 budget.
The increase of 2.33 % as proposed by the Secretary-General is due to an increase of 2.01 % for statutory financial obligations and 2.89 % for non-statutory expenditure.
General framework
Parliament is concerned with the situation of Heading 7 in the current MFF. It regrets the Council’s opposition to the Commission’s proposal to increase the ceiling of Heading 7 in the MFF revision as from 2024. It highlighted that the forecasted negative margin for 2027 presupposes the use of special instruments in Heading 7 for that purpose and underlined that recourse to special instruments should remain exceptional, duly justified and limited to unforeseen circumstances.
Parliament endorsed the agreement reached in the Conciliation between the Bureau and the Committee on Budgets on 15 April 2026 to set the increase over the 2026 budget at 1.98 %, corresponding to an overall of estimates of EUR 2 656 435 753 for 2027, and to reduce accordingly the appropriations proposed on a number of budget lines for a total of EUR 10 554 000.
Out of the increase of EUR 51.6 million compared to the 2026 budget, an increase of EUR 32.6 million is due to statutory financial obligations, mainly for salary updates of officials and temporary staff (EUR 16.2 million) and contract agents (EUR 1.7 million). Parliament welcomed that an exceptional direct aid is foreseen from 2027 onwards for each trainee based in Luxembourg (up to EUR 500 per month of traineeship) to help them cope with rising housing costs.
Strengthening Parliament’s core functions
The resolution took note of the four new thematic Directorates-General (DGs), operational since January 2025 and responsible for legislative, budgetary and scrutiny activities, in order to improve the functioning of Parliament as a co-legislator, as one arm of the budgetary authority, and as discharge authority. It also took note of the redeployment of internal resources. Parliament requested the Secretary-General to provide the Committee on Budgets with regular updates on the evolution and use of resources in those four new DGs.
Noting that investigations and recovery actions concerning the suspected misuse of Union funds by the former Identity and Democracy group, reconfigured today as the Patriots for Europe Group, highlight the importance of robust internal controls, effective ex-post verification and swift recovery mechanisms within Parliament’s administration. In this regard, Members called on Parliament’s administration to complete all outstanding recovery proceedings without
delay and to refer any evidence of irregular expenditure to OLAF and the EPPO.
Digital transition
The overall IT budget represents 7.6 % of the total budget in the 2027 estimates and amounts to EUR 202.4 million. Parliament stressed the importance of a sound cybersecurity infrastructure in geopolitically turbulent times. The planned gradual increase of the cybersecurity financial appropriations to 10 % of Parliament’s ICT budget should be implemented as soon as possible.
Members highlighted the potential of AI to streamline administrative processes.
Infrastructure
Parliament noted that the SPAAK building renovation starts to be carried out as of 2027 and noted that the overall budget for the renovation has been set at EUR 455 million and that EUR 77.67 million are foreseen for 2027. These costs are not included in the budget 2027 therefore there is a need to ensure strict cost control, transparency and adherence to the planned budget. Parliament intends to contract loans, including with the European Investment Bank, for the financing of the SPAAK renovation project.
Once again, Parliament stressed the fact that having a single seat for the Parliament could reduce the financial and environmental costs.
Green Parliament
Parliament welcomed Parliament’s environmental management system (EMAS) targets for 2025-2029. It took note of the budget of EUR 8.97 million for investments on energy efficiency and environment in the 2027 estimates to further improve the environmental performance of its buildings. Concerning Parliament's carbon footprint which originates mostly from the transportation of people, Members called for a reflection of Parliament’s bodies on mission practices outside of the three working places and a revision of mission rules and practices with the overall aim to reduce the number of missions, and the associated financial and environmental costs.
Other issues
The resolution: (i) called on the Conference of Presidents to come up without further delay with a decision concerning the relevant Articles of its internal rules regarding the participating of accredited parliamentary assistants to accompany Members in official missions and delegations outside Parliament’s three places of work where no member of staff of their political group represented in the mission has been officially notified to Parliament's Secretariat; (ii) stated that it should lead by example concerning the rights of persons with disabilities, both as an employer and as a public institution; (iii) welcomed the recent initiatives endorsed by the Conference of Presidents and the Bureau to allow Members in the perinatal period to vote by proxy, recognising this as a positive step towards greater inclusiveness in parliamentary work; (iv) highlighted that multilingualism is a key principle on which Parliament’s work is based; (v) asked that, where appropriate, Parliament capitalise on major technological evolutions in multilingualism-related services, including the development and use of AI.