Eurobloat #0183 • July 2025
July began with the Commission asking for two trillion euros, then casting about for new things to tax, from your vape to corporate turnover, and setting a 2040 climate target whose arithmetic quietly depends on credits bought abroad.
Folly of the Month: two trillion euros, if you please
On 16 July the Commission unveiled its proposed budget for 2028 to 2034, leading with a headline of €2 trillion. To pay for it, Brussels floated a suite of new "own resources", taxes on tobacco, on corporate turnover and on electronic waste, so that it might raise money directly rather than ask the member states. An institution that responds to every difficulty by demanding a larger budget and its own taxing power is not economising; it is empire-building with a spreadsheet.
1. New eurotaxes for your vape
On the same day the Commission moved to recast the Tobacco Taxation Directive, extending minimum taxes to e-cigarettes, heated tobacco and nicotine pouches. No habit is too small for Brussels to find a way to tax it.
2. A 90% target, with the hard part bought in
On 2 July the Commission proposed a binding 90% emissions cut for 2040, of which up to 3% could be met with international carbon credits from 2036. The ambition makes the headline; the offsets quietly do the work.
3. The taxes Brussels would rather levy itself
Analysts noted that the new "own resources" were really a bid to let the Union tax citizens directly. The quiet ambition behind the budget is fiscal independence from the nations that fund it.
4. Another country joins the euro
The Parliament voted to admit Bulgaria as the twenty-first member of the euro area from January 2026. The currency that was meant to converge its members continues, instead, to acquire them.
5. Gas rules extended, with paperwork on the origin of every molecule
MEPs extended the gas-storage regulation to 2027 and required member states to track the Russian origin of their gas. The intention is sound; the result is yet more reporting for an energy sector already buried in it.
6. Coming for the cheap parcels
The Parliament debated tougher enforcement against low-value imports and online sales, the cheap packages from outside the Union that Brussels finds so vexing. The customer who wanted a bargain is about to meet the Consumer Protection Cooperation Regulation.
7. Extending its writ to Ukraine's phone bills
In July the Council agreed to fold Ukraine and Moldova into the EU roaming area from 2026. The Union expands, as ever, one regulation at a time, even before the membership paperwork is done.
8. The institutional turf war over foreign investment
Lawyers described the fight over the new foreign-investment screening rules as an institutional game of thrones, with Brussels trying to wrest control from the member states. Even the EU's own organs cannot agree who should hold the new powers.
9. A debate on preserving minority regions, in the abstract
The Parliament found time to debate a citizens' initiative on protecting the culture and language of ethnic-minority regions. Noble in principle, and a useful reminder that the chamber will debate almost anything except whether it does too much.
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