EU budget in danger: Debt crisis is looming, every citizen is asking themselves!

EU budget in danger: Debt crisis is looming, every citizen is asking themselves!

Financial tensions are boiling over in the heart of the EU: repayments for the controversial “NextGenerationEU” program threaten to blow up the European Union’s budget. The Freedom European Parliamentarian Mag. Roman Haider vehemently warns that 25 to 30 billion euros are necessary annually to repay the share capital and interest - that corresponds to a fifth of the entire EU budget! These alarming figures come from internal EU documents and clearly show that member states are now faced with skyrocketing debt burdens. According to Haider, this could lead to increased membership fees or new sources of funding such as carbon pricing, which he considers completely unacceptable.

Debt war in the EU

The situation is becoming more and more precarious; Haider emphasizes that the EU, in its gigantic apparatus, is not drawing any lessons from the past. The call for new debt to finance armaments is becoming louder, which could put additional strain on citizens and states. This development could lead to the EU continuing to be perceived as an “all-consuming juggernaut” that is growing at the expense of its member states.

A look at member states' net positions in 2023 shows that Germany remains the EU's largest net contributor at 17.4 billion euros, despite a decline from 19.7 billion euros last year, according to a recent report. France and Italy follow, while Poland remains the largest net recipient with 8.2 billion euros. These financial flows between Member States highlight the worrying developments in the EU's financial structure. In addition, the NextGenerationEU fund, which covers a huge dimension of EU borrowing, is a key issue that will concern countries in the near future, especially high-profile recipients such as Greece, which receives 1.31 percent of its GNI from this fund, as the IW Cologne report shows.