Eurobloat #0186 • October 2025
October was the month the Parliament looked at the Commission's two-trillion-euro budget and balked, while the deforestation law staggered through yet another delay and the Council's message-scanning plan ran into a wall.
Folly of the Month: a two-trillion-euro budget, too much even for the Parliament
On 30 October the European Parliament revolted against the Commission's proposed €2 trillion long-term budget, with its largest groups demanding it be redrawn. When even the institution that loves spending European money thinks the number is too big and too centralising, the number is too big and too centralising. The Commission's instinct, as ever, was to ask for more and let others explain why not.
1. The message-scanners hit a wall
The "Chat Control" vote pencilled in for 14 October was scrapped after Germany joined a blocking minority and the Danish presidency could not find a qualified majority. The idea that the state should scan everyone's private messages was beaten back yet again, though nobody in Brussels seems willing to let it rest for good.
2. The law so unworkable it had to be postponed again
On 21 October the Commission proposed yet another delay to its deforestation regulation, pushing application back to the end of 2026 for smaller operators and bolting on a fresh round of simplifications. A rule that has to be postponed and rewritten before it ever takes effect was perhaps not ready when it was passed.
3. The Commission nobody can remove, made to sweat
On 9 October the von der Leyen Commission survived two motions of censure, one from the right and one from the left, both comfortably voted down. The executive that no voter ever directly chose at least had to spend an afternoon defending itself.
4. Brussels would like its own taxes, please
The budget fight turned on new "own resources", Brussels-speak for taxing tobacco, corporate turnover and the rest directly rather than asking member states. The Union has discovered that the surest way to grow is to raise its own money.
→ ey.com
5. A driving licence on your phone, whether you wanted one or not
On 21 October the Parliament backed a revised Driving Licence Directive, complete with a digital licence on your mobile, a two-year probationary regime for new drivers and disqualifications that follow you across every border. Brussels has decided that even the permit to drive your own car is something it ought to harmonise, digitise and supervise from the centre.
6. A blizzard of texts in two days
On 22 and 23 October the Parliament adopted a long list of texts, the routine output of a machine that legislates by the kilogram. Quantity, in Brussels, is mistaken for purpose.
7. The 2040 target, heroic on paper
Work pressed on to write a 90% emissions cut for 2040 into law, leaning on foreign carbon credits to make the sums add up. The ambition is for the press release; the offsets are for reality.
8. The 2035 engine ban heads for the workshop
Through the autumn the Commission prepared to soften its 2035 ban on new combustion cars after the industry pushed back. A flagship policy is being quietly dismantled, which rather invites the question of why it was set in stone.
→ pbs.org
9. Fingerprints at the border, please
On 12 October the Union switched on its Entry/Exit System, taking the fingerprints and facial images of every non-EU visitor crossing a Schengen border, the British included. A continent that lectures everyone else about privacy now files your biometrics the moment you arrive.
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