Parliament Confirms 2024 Budget Was Spent Properly

Budget Spending Review (The "Discharge")

The European Parliament reviewed how the EU spent its 2024 budget. If the spending was found to be correct, the Parliament granted a "discharge," which is a formal approval of the budget implementation.

Key Financial Points:

• The Parliament spent slightly more money in 2024 than in 2023.
• Most of the spending was allocated to staff costs, buildings, and IT systems.
• The total budget was €2.383 billion.

Oversight and Auditing

The spending was checked by several bodies:

• Court of Auditors: Found the overall spending risk to be low, and noted that the Parliament's error rate was not significant.
• Internal Auditor: Completed 24 out of 57 planned audit actions. However, 33 actions remain pending, particularly those related to cyber-security.
• Committee on Budgetary Control: Expressed satisfaction but requested greater transparency and faster follow-up on any spending irregularities.

Key Areas of Focus and Action

The Parliament addressed several specific areas in its resolution:

Political Groups and Spending

• The Identity & Democracy (ID) Group was found to have spent €4.3 million more than was allowed between 2019 and 2024.
• The Parliament is waiting for the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) to conclude its investigation before deciding on any recovery of funds.
• Oversight of spending by political groups is being tightened.

Transparency and Ethics

• The Parliament must update its rules to fully comply with EU directives regarding whistle-blowers, as the Court of Justice noted that protection was incomplete.
• The resolution stressed the need for better monitoring of members' financial interests and a stronger culture of integrity.

Digitalization and Technology

• The Parliament is investing heavily in digital security, including building a secure data center and improving cybersecurity across all systems.
• It established an AI Governance Board and plans to make all committee debates searchable and publicly available.

Social and Financial Commitments

• Gender Equality: The Parliament must publish and monitor a Gender Action Plan, which requires considering gender perspectives in all spending.
• Pension Scheme: The Voluntary Pension Scheme (VPS) is facing financial difficulties. The Parliament has reduced future pension payments and must comply with a court ruling that dismissed a challenge to the scheme's rules.

Governance and Compliance

• European Political Parties: The Authority for European Political Parties and Foundations is strengthening rules to prevent foreign interference. New regulations require parties to check their member parties and foundations for compliance.
• Procurement: While the number of contracts awarded was lower than the previous year, the Parliament aims to improve transparency by making contracts over €15,000 publicly available in a machine-readable format.

Broader context

The discharge procedure is an annual democratic accountability check — the European Parliament acts as a watchdog over its own spending. This is unusual: most parliaments have their budgets scrutinised by external bodies. The EU system gives MEPs the power to formally approve or reject how EU institutions spent taxpayer money.

The Court of Auditors is an independent EU body that has audited EU finances every year since 1977. Its "not material" finding means the error rate in spending was below 2% — the threshold the EU uses to define acceptable risk.

The EPPO (European Public Prosecutor's Office) is a relatively new EU body, created in 2021, that can investigate and prosecute fraud against the EU budget across member states. Its involvement in the ID Group case is one of the first high-profile uses of its powers against an EU institution's internal actors.

The Voluntary Pension Scheme was set up for MEPs elected before 2009. It is separate from national pension systems and is funded by Parliament's own budget — meaning its €105 million deficit is ultimately a liability for EU taxpayers.

Impact on people living in the EU

Your tax money is involved. The EU budget — including Parliament's €2.38 billion share — is funded through member state contributions, which come from national taxes and a share of VAT.

The ID Group irregularities matter because €4.3 million in EU public funds may have been misused by elected representatives. If EPPO confirms wrongdoing, recovery would return that money to the EU budget.

Whistleblower protection affects any EU civil servant or contractor who witnesses fraud. The current gap in Parliament's rules means people who report wrongdoing may not be fully protected from retaliation — the resolution pushes to fix this.

The pension deficit (€105 million owed, only €23 million in assets) does not directly affect EU citizens' pensions, but it represents a potential future claim on the EU budget if Parliament needs to cover the shortfall.

Digital transparency measures — such as making committee debates searchable online — would give any EU citizen easier access to how laws affecting them are debated and made.