EU Budget Commissioner Piotr Serafin urges frugal states to rethink cuts, warning of higher costs with fragmented spending.

EU Budget Commissioner Piotr Serafin has called on the bloc’s so-called ‘frugal’ member states to reconsider their push for a smaller seven-year EU budget. Speaking at the European Commission’s annual budget conference, Serafin argued that a single, larger EU budget is more efficient than 27 fragmented national ones. He compared the situation to the EU’s Copernicus and Galileo satellite systems, stating that no one would advocate for 27 separate systems over the unified projects.

Serafin’s remarks come as Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, and Sweden push for deeper cuts to the proposed €2 trillion budget, suggesting a €400 billion reduction—ten times the cut proposed by Cyprus. Serafin warned that less EU spending doesn’t mean less overall spending, as national governments would need to cover critical areas like defense, energy security, and research independently, leading to higher costs, duplication, and fewer economies of scale. He highlighted the Horizon research program, which is set to grow from €90 billion to €175 billion under the 2028-2034 budget proposal, as an example of the benefits of centralized EU funding.