August 9, 2026

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The European Post

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August 9, 2026

Newsletter

The European Post

Policy • Diplomacy • Strategic Insight

LATEST
New EU Gas Market Rules Take Effect With Consumer SafeguardsDeforestation Regulation Holds Its December Deadline Despite CutsDigital Omnibus Delays Europe’s High-Risk AI Deadline to 2027Europe’s Schools Confront a Widening Basic Skills GapRule of Law Report Finds Progress but Trust Still LagsIRIS2 Gains 66 Satellites as Brussels Signs the Rollout DealNature Restoration Plans Come Due as Member States Race a DeadlineECB Rates Hold at 2.25 Percent as Frankfurt Waits on the DataEU Budget Talks Turn to Cohesion as Ireland Takes OverWildfire Response Stretches Europe’s Emergency Fleet ThinCan Europe’s Quantum Plan Match Its Big Ambitions?Armenia Edges West as Moscow’s Grip Slips AwayEurope Inherits the World’s Aid Bill It Cannot Fully PayAir Passenger Rights Get Their First Overhaul in Two DecadesErasmus Opens a 5 Billion Euro Round for Skills and MobilityCeuta Crisis Pushes the EU Toward Faster Migrant ReturnsBulky Parcels Face a Packaging Crackdown From August 12Can Europe Build Its Drone Wall Before 2030 Arrives?Indonesia’s Trade Deal With Europe Nears Its Final SignatureEurope Leans on Beijing to Keep Climate Talks Alive Before AntalyaNew EU Gas Market Rules Take Effect With Consumer SafeguardsDeforestation Regulation Holds Its December Deadline Despite CutsDigital Omnibus Delays Europe’s High-Risk AI Deadline to 2027Europe’s Schools Confront a Widening Basic Skills GapRule of Law Report Finds Progress but Trust Still LagsIRIS2 Gains 66 Satellites as Brussels Signs the Rollout DealNature Restoration Plans Come Due as Member States Race a DeadlineECB Rates Hold at 2.25 Percent as Frankfurt Waits on the DataEU Budget Talks Turn to Cohesion as Ireland Takes OverWildfire Response Stretches Europe’s Emergency Fleet ThinCan Europe’s Quantum Plan Match Its Big Ambitions?Armenia Edges West as Moscow’s Grip Slips AwayEurope Inherits the World’s Aid Bill It Cannot Fully PayAir Passenger Rights Get Their First Overhaul in Two DecadesErasmus Opens a 5 Billion Euro Round for Skills and MobilityCeuta Crisis Pushes the EU Toward Faster Migrant ReturnsBulky Parcels Face a Packaging Crackdown From August 12Can Europe Build Its Drone Wall Before 2030 Arrives?Indonesia’s Trade Deal With Europe Nears Its Final SignatureEurope Leans on Beijing to Keep Climate Talks Alive Before Antalya

Second Own Resources Basket Stalls As Brussels Eyes 2028 Gate

Anna Akhmatova
EU Affairs Reporter, EU Budget

Stockholm: The Council working party on Own Resources met on 22 May without movement on the second basket of new own resources, the package that includes a financial transaction tax-based contribution, a corporate tax-based contribution linked to the BEFIT proposal, and a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism revenue stream. Six Member States, including the Swedish, Danish, and Finnish delegations, blocked progress on the FTT contribution element, citing concerns about the impact on smaller capital markets and existing national financial transaction taxes already in force in France and Italy.

The first basket of new own resources, agreed in principle in December 2021 and including a contribution from the ETS revenue stream and a CBAM-linked contribution, is on a clearer track but only partially in force. The ETS-linked own resource began contributing to the EU budget in 2024 at a 30 percent call rate, but the CBAM-linked own resource has slipped because the certificates regime under the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism only began full operation on 1 January 2026, and the revenue flow into the EU budget needs another full reporting cycle before the call rate can be set with confidence. The Commission’s own resources decision proposal that would integrate the CBAM contribution into the formal Decision is sitting at the Council pending unanimous agreement and ratification by all national parliaments.

The political weight of this is sharpening because the European Union for Recovery debt instruments, the NextGenerationEU bonds issued to finance the recovery and resilience facility, begin to require principal repayment in 2028. The Commission has estimated annual repayment costs of around 25 to 30 billion euros across the 2028 to 2058 window, and the assumption when NGEU was designed was that new own resources would carry that load rather than displace existing programmes inside the MFF ceiling. With the second basket stuck and the CBAM contribution not yet codified, that assumption is under strain. Budget Commissioner Serafin signalled in his Stockholm speech on 19 May that the Commission is preparing a fallback proposal that would route a fixed share of customs duty revenue and a temporary GNI-based contribution adjustment toward NGEU servicing if the new own resources timeline does not converge before the 2028 cliff.

Swedish Finance Minister Svantesson hosted the informal ECOFIN segment on own resources earlier this month and used the closing remarks to make a point that has been quietly gathering support in northern capitals. Stockholm’s position is that new own resources should be assessed against a four-criteria test, sufficiency of revenue, fairness of incidence, simplicity of administration, and political acceptability across the unanimous decision required for ratification. The FTT contribution scores poorly on the fourth criterion, the BEFIT-linked contribution scores poorly on the first because of the slow pace of corporate tax harmonisation, and only the CBAM-linked stream scores reasonably across all four.

Southern delegations are pushing back. The Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese permanent representations have argued in the working party that the four-criteria test risks narrowing the bloc’s revenue options at exactly the moment when NGEU repayment requires breadth, and that political acceptability cannot be the binding constraint when the consequence is to push the cost into the GNI contribution that already absorbs the residual.

The Parliament’s Budgets Committee has scheduled an exchange of views with Commissioner Serafin for 11 June, and the rapporteurs on the own resources file are preparing an own initiative report that will press for a faster timeline on the CBAM contribution codification and a sharper assessment of what fills the gap if the second basket remains stalled. The window for movement before the NGEU repayment curve becomes binding is narrowing, and the Polish presidency from 1 July is expected to make own resources one of its three priority files alongside the MFF revision and the cohesion architecture for the post-2027 period.

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