Infinite money for war and death, 0 for anything else

[T]he EU budget amounts to roughly 1% of the EU’s combined gross domestic product. Under the current 2021-2027 framework, the legal ceiling on what Brussels can even raise is 1.4% of EU GDP, and actual spending has consistently come in well under that, around 1% to 1.1%. The 2026 annual budget lands at €192.8 billion in commitments — against an EU economy worth somewhere north of €17 trillion.

Now put that next to what most national governments do with their own economies.

Germany’s federal government (excluding the Länder, the regional states that run their own substantial budgets) spent around €495.5 billion in 2025 on a German economy of roughly €4.3-4.4 trillion. That’s about 12% of GDP, from the federal layer alone, before you add a single euro of state or municipal spending. Berlin’s federal government, in other words, spends more than ten times what the EU’s confederal government does. And that’s the “frugal” German federal government we’re talking about, the one whose chancellor stood next to Jetten in Cyprus this spring and said it was time for the EU to “reduce spending.”

Dave Keating recently did a deep dive on the budget and why our leaders need to step up their game rather than slashing the budget of an EU they expect to do ever more with less money.