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Northern leaders are asking the EU to do more but with less resources. They're incompatible demands. If you believe the EU must be stronger, then you need to be willing to pay for it. But Brussels-bashing is the easiest lever to pull for unpopular politicians like Merz. My take:

It tends to become cheaper as well when you centralize some functions. But i guess this period is like the years before the US civil war, where "states rights" (not just slavery, although that was the largest aspect) came in conflict with increasing demand for federal cooperation.

The EU budget amounts to roughly 1% of 🇪🇺GDP. Germany's federal government alone (excluding the Länder state budgets) is 12% of 🇩🇪GDP. The US federal government budget (again, not including state budgets) is 22.8% of 🇺🇸GDP.

For unitary states the contrast is even more striking. The Dutch national budget is 45% of 🇳🇱GDP - 45 times more than the EU. France's is 57% of 🇫🇷GDP.

Merz is pitching a fit about the new 🇪🇺budget creating 2,500 more EU civil service jobs. There are a total of roughly 55,000 EU civil servants. The German federal government employs 527,000. So that's: 🇩🇪:1 federal employee for every 159 residents 🇪🇺:1 confederal employee for every 7,800 residents