EU chief von der Leyen and the loss of contact with reality

The European Union today spends more than two and a half times as much as in 2000: 216.4 billion euros in 2025 instead of 83.5 billion. The administration of all the EU institutions now costs 13.8 billion euros a year.^[1] For translation and interpretation into 24 official languages the EU has for years given the same estimate of around one billion euros, a figure from 2013.^[2]

Ursula von der Leyen has led the EU Commission since December 2019. Since then total spending has risen by 36 per cent up to 2025, and administrative spending by 33 per cent.^[1] For the overall budget the largest part goes back to the coronavirus recovery fund NextGenerationEU; without it, it is just under 10 per cent. Administration, by contrast, grows without any special fund, with practically the same number of established posts: 39,130 in 2019, 39,309 in 2026.^[1][3][4]

Anyone who lets their own administration keep growing with figures like these, and who does not put forward even a quantified savings requirement for translation into 24 languages, has lost contact with the people and businesses who pay for all of it. What lies behind it is shown by the figures since 1980.

The EU budget since 2000

The development came in steps: the 2004 enlargement to the east lifted spending above 100 billion euros. In the 2014 to 2020 financial framework it fell back at first, then rose markedly again from 2018. The jump from 2021 goes predominantly back to NextGenerationEU; in 2024 alone 73.1 billion euros flowed from it, and spending reached its peak at 247.0 billion euros. Without NextGenerationEU the budget from 2021 to 2025 lay relatively stable between 173 and 180 billion euros.^[1]

How many EU regulations come each month?

The figure depends heavily on what is counted. The table shows the most robust counts, converted to months.

By far the largest part are implementing and delegated regulations of the Commission: technical detail, authorisations, customs tariffs, food additives. Legislative acts of Parliament and Council make up only around five regulations a month. EUR-Lex also leaves out short-lived agricultural administrative acts; with them the figure would be higher.^[5][7]

The administrative budget since 1980

Into the nineties the share of administration in the budget lay stable between 4 and 6 per cent. Since 2021 it has been rising noticeably, in 2025 to 7.9 per cent of the regular budget.^[1][9] Since 2019 administrative spending has risen by 33 per cent, from 10.4 to 13.8 billion euros.^[1] Since established posts have barely grown since 2009, it is likely to be above all salaries, pensions, buildings and external staff that drive the costs. That is an inference of our own; the Commission provides no breakdown of it.

EU staff since 1979

The established posts of all the EU institutions rose from 16,162 in 1979 to 39,309 in 2026, 2.4 times as many.^[10][4] Since 2009 they have stood at around 39,000 to 40,000; between 2013 and 2017 all the institutions and agencies were to reduce their staff by 5 per cent.^[3] On top come around 20,000 full-time posts of external personnel in 2026. Including the executive agencies, around 60,100 full-time staff thus work for the institutions.^[4] The decentralised agencies are not counted in this; in 2026 they have a further 16,100 posts or so.^[11]

The Commission itself had 18,797 established posts in its operational establishment plan in 2026, fewer than in 2009 with 20,384. Including external personnel it is 32,552 full-time equivalents.^[4]

Ten curious EU rules

A selection by public perception, with the legal basis and the position today. Claims without a legal basis, such as the supposed condom size regulation, are deliberately not included.

Several of these rules have a substantive background: trading standards, consumer protection, acrylamide in food, plastic waste in the sea. They still look curious, and they show how deep into the detail Brussels goes.

Translation costs: 24 languages, no list of savings

As long ago as 2006 the European Court of Auditors objected that the institutions do not calculate their total costs for translation or the cost per page; only the Commission had done so, for 2002.^[26] To this day only the lump sum of around one billion euros is publicly named.^[2] The Commission is reducing staff in its translation service and outsourcing more: the share of outsourced translation rose in 2025 from 30.2 to 35.7 per cent.^[28] But no quantified savings requirement for the language services has been published. That would be a concrete starting point for saving on administration.

What belongs to a fair assessment

The budget is not decided by the Commission alone. The multiannual financial framework is adopted by the Council unanimously with the consent of the European Parliament; the annual budget is adopted by the Council and Parliament together on a proposal from the Commission.^[29]

NextGenerationEU was agreed by all the member states in 2020 and ratified by May 2021, Germany included.^[30] In 2022 the Federal Constitutional Court dismissed the constitutional complaints against it.^[31]

Measured against economic output the regular budget has barely grown: without NextGenerationEU it corresponded in 2025 to 0.93 per cent of the EU’s gross national income, and in 2000 it was 0.92 per cent. That is a calculation of our own from the Commission’s file.^[1] All amounts are at current prices; since 2000 the EU has grown from 15 to 27 member states.

Andreas W. HerbCEO MBG Group, Paderborn