Own resources – 2025 proposal

Key points

The EESC:

• underlines that the debate on new own resources should evolve beyond technical adjustments and become a strategic reflection on how to strengthen the EU’s financial autonomy, cohesion and competitiveness;
• encourages the European Commission to further refine the overall design of the proposed own-resources package to make it ambitious, balanced and future-oriented. The Commission should: 
  (a) set out a clear roadmap towards gradually reducing reliance on GNI-based contributions; 
  (b) design measures and promote cohesion and fairness, ensuring that all Member States contribute in proportion to their economic strength; 
  (c) integrate a competitiveness and SME impact lens in all new own-resources proposals; 
  (d) maintain a degree of flexibility in crisis-response mechanisms;
• invites the Council and the European Parliament to build a broad and lasting consensus through a pragmatic, phased and evidence-based approach. The institutions should: (a) advance the proposals that are ready for implementation first – such as the CBAM -based resource, the modernised plastics contribution and the reform of customs retention – while allowing more time for discussion and analysis of complex instruments; (b) agree on a joint interinstitutional review clause so that all new own resources are assessed within two years from the entry into force; (c) ensure that mechanisms to prevent regressivity and compensate Member States on the EU’s external borders are integrated into the final package;
• finds that the Corporate Resource for Europe (CORE) proposal lacks clarity on its practical functioning expresses some reservations about the CORE proposal as a whole
• welcomes the positive contribution that both CBAM and the e-waste mechanism could bring to sustainability and circularity;
• notes that the tobacco excise duty own resource proposal should be designed carefully to avoid negative effects in border regions or incentives for illicit trade;
• supports the reduction of customs-duty retention to 10% as a step towards greater EU financial coherence, provided that appropriate compensatory mechanisms are established;
• welcomes the removal of the EUR 150 de-minimis threshold for parcels sent to the EU from third countries and the introduction of an e-commerce handling fee as of November 2026, with this handling possibly becoming a new own resource of the EU budget.