00:00Is Ursula von der Leyen auto-increasing her own salary?
00:06A video recently shared on Instagram claims that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen
00:12is automatically increasing her own salary.
00:14The claim has resurfaced on social media after being relayed by far-right political figures,
00:19including former MEP Florian Philippot,
00:22who quoted an article published by the German newspaper Bild.
00:25In an article from March 2025, Bild reports that EU officials have received their seventh pay raise in three years.
00:32According to publicly available data published by Eurlex,
00:35it is true that the salaries of EU officials increased between 2020 and 2025.
00:41But these increases are not the result of a personal decision by Ursula von der Leyen.
00:45They are based on an automatic salary adjustment mechanism
00:48adopted in 2013 by the European Parliament and EU member states.
00:52EU staff salaries are updated annually using a formula calculated by Eurostat.
00:57This formula reflects changes in the purchasing power of national civil servants across EU countries.
01:03For example, if the Belgian government increases or decreases the purchasing power of its civil servants,
01:09the salaries of EU officials working in Belgium follow the same trend.
01:13Looking specifically at Ursula von der Leyen's salary,
01:16it is accurate to say that her monthly salary rose from around 28,400 euros in 2020
01:22to approximately 35,800 euros today.
01:26Another claim often heard is that EU officials do not pay taxes.
01:30This is partly misleading.
01:31EU officials do not pay national income tax, but they are subject to EU taxes.
01:36A commission spokesperson told The Cube that it has absolutely no such thing as self-raising salaries.
01:42It added that administrative savings between 2004 and 2025 led to an 11.9% drop in EU staff's real purchasing power
01:50due to staff regulation reforms and salary adjustment cuts.
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