Netherlands demands hundreds of billions in EU budget cuts

The Dutch government has co-signed a letter to the EU presidency demanding the bloc’s next budget, which is set every seven years, be dramatically scaled back.

Prime minister Rob Jetten’s minority coalition is one of six so-called “frugal” governments, whose countries pay more into the EU budget than they get back.

The European Commission has proposed an almost €2 trillion budget for the 2028-2034 period, which governs spending on everything from agriculture to defence and funding for poorer regions.

Along with Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, and Finland, the Netherlands is now pressing for a cut of several hundred billion euros from the proposals.

The letter, which has not been made public but has been seen by major news outlets, states: “Our six countries alone finance almost 40% of all Member States’ contributions. While net contributors as a whole are in the minority, they shoulder around three-quarters of the total financing burden.”

An almost €2 trillion budget would represent a 60% nominal increase in the size of the current budget, which, they argue, is “simply not realistic.”

Divisions
There are 17 other countries, including Spain and Italy, who are insisting on protections for impoverished regions and struggling sectors like agriculture, and want the overall budget raised above €2 trillion.

The Commission has also suggested creating new EU-wide taxes, including a levy on large companies and a tobacco excise duty, to raise capital and ease the burden on countries like the Netherlands. In June, the Cypriot presidency proposed a 2% cut to the Commission’s plan, which the six considered far too small.

Negotiators want to get a deal done by the end of the year, before elections in France, Italy, Spain and Poland complicate the talks. All 27 member states must agree to the budget.

But according to the Financial Times, a diplomat from one of the six countries said there would be no deal this year unless the budget was cut by hundreds of billions of euros.

Ireland, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, is due to present a new compromise text in the coming days, ahead of a summit of EU leaders on October 15 and 16. European Council president António Costa will meet Jetten in the Netherlands on October 9 to discuss the budget.

Jetten’s shift
The letter marks a U-turn for Jetten, whose D66 party went into the 2025 election calling for a European budget twice its current size, financed by new EU-level taxes. The same manifesto proposed €750 to €800 billion a year in extra European investment, paid for with joint borrowing.

In office with his minority coalition, Jetten has taken a different line. At an informal EU summit in Cyprus in April, he rejected the €2 trillion proposal, telling reporters the Dutch contribution would “explode” under the plan, according to De Telegraaf. In June he told NOS the Commission’s proposal was “simply not good enough”.

A big part of the reason is money – at the moment, the Netherlands gets a discount on its EU bill. Brussels wants to end that discount, which would cost the Dutch around €2 billion more a year. In total, the plans would add up to €5.4 billion a year to what the Netherlands pays the EU, according to the Court of Audit, the government’s spending watchdog.