Parliament adopted its resolution on Draft Amending Budget No 1/2026, which enters the 2025 surplus into this year's budget, by 492 votes to 101 with 60 abstentions. The EPP, S&D, Renew, Greens/EFA and most of ECR carried the text; ESN voted against, while PfE was divided ( 7 for, 47 against, 21 abstentions). As a budgetary file, this decision has concrete financial effect: it formally books the previous year's surplus into the Union's 2026 accounts.
The main political dispute, however, was not about the surplus itself but about how future Union revenue should be raised. The votes divided opinion along a consistent line over own resources. A majority backed paragraph 7, which calls for at least EUR 60 billion per year in genuine new own resources to fund the 2028-2034 MFF and reduce reliance on national GNI-based contributions, adopted by 135 votes with EPP, S&D, Renew and Greens/EFA in favour and ECR, ESN and PfE against. Three amendments (4, 5 and 6) that would instead have rejected new own resources and prioritised collecting existing revenue — citing fraud, VAT and customs losses and weak port controls — were all rejected by wide margins, supported by ECR, ESN, PfE and most NI members but opposed by the political centre.