EUobserver takes a deep dive into the workings and new chairs of every single European Parliament committee for the new 2024-2029 session, in a series of articles first published in our print magazine of October 2024
After four years as Belgian finance minister, Johan van Overtveldt, a member of the conservative New Flemish Alliance, was elected to the European Parliament in 2019 and was promptly elected as chairman of the influential Budgets committee.
A former journalist who got into politics in 2013, van Overtveldt was one of few MEPs to get a second term as committee chair, securing a hefty 32 to 7 majority.
In the inter-institutional battles between EU governments and the parliament, MEPs have historically been the ones demanding more EU spending and critiquing the parsimony of national treasuries. As lawmakers haggle over the bloc’s budget for 2025, MEPs led by Romanian Victor Negrescu of the S&D have criticised national capitals for trying to cut €1.52bn from the EU Commission’s draft budget.
However, while van Overtveldt has been a supporter of greater EU spending on research and innovation, he has a reputation as a fiscal hawk.
In a statement after his election was confirmed, the Belgian ECR chairman said that the EU should "continue to evolve towards a future-proof budget that stimulates investment, supports the purchasing power of citizens and the competitiveness of our companies, and focuses on real and current needs, such as the support for Ukraine and strengthening military capacities in the European Union."
He added that it also remains a task to "safeguard the quality of expenditures".
Van Overtveldt describes himself as a “bridge-builder, compromise-seeker”, skills that will be tested when he leads parliament’s negotiations on the next multi-annual financial framework, which carves out the EU’s €1.2 trillion central budget for the period 2028-2034. The commission is expected to put forward a text in the second half of 2025 which will kick-start the process.
The commission is also likely, with parliament’s approval, to provide more funding for Ukraine. The budgets chair says that EU funding for Ukraine. Though MEPs approved a €50bn aid package for Ukraine at the start of 2024, the budgets chair says that far more EU support will be needed.
He argues that the €200bn of frozen Russian assets could be used by the EU as collateral to make €150bn available to Kyiv in a revolving credit line.
“Ukraine needs sustainable funding. At the same time, we should consider very strict controls on how these funds are spent”.
Also on the committee’s agenda will be the follow-up to Mario Draghi report’s recommendations on EU competitiveness, which painted a gloomy picture of the EU falling behind the United States and China. The former ECB chief’s blueprint is likely to shape the second term von der Leyen commission industrial policy and have major budgetary implications, particularly the question of how to finance the massive annual increase in investment of between €750bn and €800bn per year — and the potential use of jointly-issued EU debt to finance it.
The Belgian MEP, whose reputation as a fiscal hawk as the ECR group’s spokesman on the economics committee also extends to the EU’s finances, contends that fresh money can be found by cutting back some budget headings and by increasing member states' direct contributions to the EU budget.
He is also a sceptic about joint EU debt.
“We cannot of course ignore the Draghi report, which imposes an impressive competitiveness agenda and speaks of annual investment needs of €700bn to €800bn, and this for the further roll-out of the EU objectives that have already been agreed,” said van Overtveldt.
“Anyone who knows the budgetary situation of the member states a little and knows how European compromises are reached knows that such an effort cannot be made immediately,” he added.
The BUDG coordinators are: Karlo Ressler (EPP, Croatia), Jean-Marc Germain (S&D, France), Ondřej Kovařík (PfE, Czech Republic), Lucia Yar (Renew, Slovenia), Rasmus Andresen (Greens, Germany), Bogdan Rzońca (ECR, Poland), João Oliveira (Left, Portugal) and Alexander Jungbluth (ESN, Germany).
Benjamin Fox is a seasoned reporter and editor, previously working for fellow Brussels publication Euractiv. His reporting has also been published in the Guardian, the East African, Euractiv, Private Eye and Africa Confidential, among others. He heads up the AU-EU section at EUobserver, based in Nairobi, Kenya.
Benjamin Fox is a seasoned reporter and editor, previously working for fellow Brussels publication Euractiv. His reporting has also been published in the Guardian, the East African, Euractiv, Private Eye and Africa Confidential, among others. He heads up the AU-EU section at EUobserver, based in Nairobi, Kenya.