On 1 July 2026, the Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) group tabled three amendments to the European Parliament's report on the Council position on Draft Amending Budget No 1/2026, which enters the surplus of the financial year 2025. The amendments challenge the Commission's approach, reframing the surplus reduction in member state contributions as a welcome development and rejecting any link to new own resources or increased Union spending.
The amendments, tabled by ESN MEPs Alexander Jungbluth, Marcin Sypniewski, and Stanisław Tyszka, propose three key changes. First, they would replace the original text's regret that the surplus reduces GNI-based contributions with a welcome of the reduction, stating that surpluses should primarily benefit member states and not justify additional Union spending. Second, they would redefine the use of fines, reversing the principle that such revenue should be supplementary for the Union budget, instead insisting that extraordinary revenue should primarily reduce member states' GNI-based contributions. Third, they explicitly reject the creation of new own resources, insisting the budget should continue to be financed primarily through member state contributions.
The amendments are still to be examined and voted on by the Parliament's plenary. If adopted, they would represent a significant shift in the Parliament's position, opposing the long-standing call for new own resources and prioritising fiscal conservatism. The Council's position on the amending budget, which the Parliament is now considering, already reflects a similar preference for reducing member state contributions. The ESN amendments would align the Parliament more closely with the Council, potentially easing trilogue negotiations but diverging from the Parliament's traditional stance on fiscal autonomy.
The proposed changes would have direct impacts on several stakeholders. EU member states would benefit from lower GNI-based contributions, reducing their financial burden. The European Commission would face constraints on its fiscal autonomy, as the amendments limit its ability to use surpluses and fines for new spending. EU taxpayers would see reduced transfers to the EU budget, but potentially at the cost of less EU investment in common priorities. Proponents of EU fiscal integration would see a setback, as the amendments reject new own resources that could provide the EU with independent revenue streams.