European DOGE? The Retreat to Fallible Simplicity
Photo Courtesy: Sara Kurfeß via Unsplash
European government budgets are once again at breaking point, as spending demands mount, stretching capacities thin. Financial headway is urgent. With war at the EU’s doorstep, and the continent’s end to exporting its defence responsibilities to the US, massive investment in Europe’s militaries and defence-industrial complex is desperately needed.
Funds are hard to find. The expensive, and ever-expanding European welfare state was built on strong trade surpluses, US security assurances and dynamic demographics. Today, all those pillars falter. Nevertheless, meddling with the welfare state is politically costly for those in power.
European leaders have signalled their intention to fund their immediate needs through capital markets. Commission President Von der Leyen presented her ‘ReArm Europe Plan’ consisting of €150 billion in loans, whilst fiscally conservative Fredrich Merz, the likely future German chancellor, pushes for defence spending exemptions within Germany’s debt brake. Yet, loans are a short-term and risky solution, with Eurozone debt to GDP at 87.8%.
In this context, voices have arisen, favouring the import of President Trump’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency). In an attempt to cost-cut within European administrations, and reduce bureaucracy, many are seduced by the simple solution provided by Elon Musk’s indiscriminate cutting. These calls have come from both politicians and business leaders.
On Monday, Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Höttges argued that a European DOGE was needed to help cut down the “tens of thousands of people sitting there and administrating our industries”. Blaming the ‘excessive bureaucracy’ of European governments for Europe’s lack of competitiveness, Höttges claimed that 270 regulators oversee Deutsche Telekom’s operations.
Germany’s far-right AfD echoed these calls, after electoral support from Elon Musk, calling for an EU version of DOGE. Even traditionally moderate parties have entered the debate. Eva De Bleeker, leader of Belgium’s Open VLD, a Flemish liberal party, called Musk’s strategy for government officials to outline their tasks during the week “common sense” in a tweet. She later deleted the tweet, explaining that she defended a more “efficient government”, not Elon Musk.
What these proposals fail to recognise is that DOGE is an ineffectual exercise in achieving government efficiency. Instead, it curtails democratic guardrails and causes unpredictability at the heart of the state. The department has already been mired in failures and missteps, one of which being the firing of 400 National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA) workers by mistake. The NNSA has scrambled to re-hire after senior officials recognised that these workers assured the US nuclear stockpile’s maintenance. Accounts of firings and re-hirings have become common. Even fellow Republicans have voiced concern over whether DOGE cuts were “compassionate”.
Despite the destruction caused by DOGE’s actions within the US government, the savings they generate are negligible. It has been estimated that, in total, only 10 billion USD have been saved. This fails to even reach 0.2% of the US government’s massive annual deficit. It is even further from the 1 trillion USD Musk declared he would save through job terminations. Instead, it has been suggested that the cuts are an exercise to remove left-leaning employees and challenge existing democratic guardrails.
DOGE's fiscal utility is practically nonexistent. The belief in functionality within a European context is unfounded and misguided. Assuming that a European version of DOGE would carry out the same savings as done in the US, the savings generated would pale in comparison with the €250 billion needed for defence spending in the short-term, calculated by Bruegel.
A European DOGE is also an inadequate response to the issues its proponents wish to solve. The 270 regulators highlighted by Höttges are a result of Europe’s multi-level governance, whose expensive over-regulatory consequences can only be effectively mitigated through European integration.
European politicians should focus on truly effective mechanisms of simplifying European bureaucracy, and fiscal headway for today’s challenges. Retreating to fallible simplicity designed to provide the electorate with viral soundbites and catchy acronyms will leave the continent in the same desperate situation it finds itself in today.