Fact check: Has Ursula von der Leyen approved automatic increases to her own salary?

European Commission Pay Increases Follow Set Formula, Not Von der Leyen’s Decision

Claims circulating on social media that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has been “automatically increasing” her own salary by €2,400 per month have been fact-checked and found to be misleading. The allegations, which have gained traction after being shared by far-right political figures including former MEP Florian Philippot, misrepresent how EU official salaries are determined.

According to publicly available data from EUR-Lex, the European Union’s official database of legal texts and public documents, salaries of EU officials have indeed increased between 2020 and 2023. However, these adjustments follow a predetermined mechanism rather than resulting from personal decisions by von der Leyen or other EU leaders.

The salary adjustment process for EU civil servants, established in 2013, operates under a formula set out in the EU Staff Regulations that was approved by EU member states and the European Parliament. This formula is not an automatic inflation-linked raise, nor a simple indexation.

Rather, Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office, calculates adjustments based on changes in the purchasing power of national civil servants across EU member states. For officials working in Brussels, like von der Leyen, this means their salaries may increase or decrease depending on how the Belgian government adjusts the pay and purchasing power of its own civil servants.

“There is absolutely no such thing as ‘self-raising salaries’ at the European Commission,” a Commission spokesperson told Euronews’ fact-checking team. The spokesperson emphasized that the 2025 salary update falls “below the level of nominal increases in Member States.”

For perspective, while EU officials’ salaries have increased, nominal salary increases in various member states were higher, standing at around 3.4% in Austria, 6.7% in Sweden, and 18% in Poland during the same period.

Under the current rules, von der Leyen’s monthly salary has risen from approximately €28,400 in 2020 to €35,800 today. However, these increases have often failed to keep pace with inflation. In 2022, for example, EU officials based in Brussels received a salary increase of 4.4%, while inflation in Belgium hit 10.5%.

The European Commission also noted that EU staff have experienced a significant loss in real purchasing power over time. Commission figures indicate that between 2004 and 2025, EU staff lost around 11.9% of their purchasing power due to successive reforms of staff regulations and limitations on salary adjustments.

Another common misconception addressed in the fact-check concerns taxation of EU officials. While EU employees do not pay national income taxes in their country of employment since the European Union does not fall under the tax jurisdiction of any single member state, they are subject to EU-level taxation.

EU officials pay a progressive EU income tax that can reach up to 45%, plus an additional solidarity levy of up to 7%, along with social security contributions. These taxes go directly into the EU budget. Additionally, EU staff pay value-added tax (VAT) and local and regional taxes like other residents.

Depending on their personal circumstances, EU officials may also receive allowances such as expatriation or family benefits, which can range from approximately €2,300 to €18,000 per month.

The controversy highlights the often complex and misunderstood nature of EU institutional compensation structures, which follow regulated processes rather than operating at the discretion of individual officials, contrary to what some social media claims suggest.