'Inequality by Design': EU Billionaire Wealth Soared by Over €400 Billion in 6 Months

A worsening inequality crisis in the European Union—where the richest people pay proportionately less tax than ordinary citizens even as billionaire wealth is skyrocketing—is driving increasingly popular demand for a wealth tax, according to a report published Thursday.

The Oxfam briefing paper, A European Agenda to Tax the Superrichch, notes that "the richest 1% in the EU own nearly a quarter of all wealth while half the population shares just 3%."

The report underscores that the combined wealth of EU billionaires soared by over €400 billion ($462.2 billion) in just six months this year—the equivalent of over €2 billion ($2.3 billion) a day.

"In 2025, the EU counted nearly 500 billionaires, 39 more than in 2024," Oxfam said. "In the last year alone, a new billionaire was created, on average, every nine days in the EU. Altogether, the richest 3,600 Europeans now hold as much wealth as the poorest 181 million—equivalent to the populations of Germany, Italy, and Spain combined."

“Europe is minting billionaires at a record rate while millions of Europeans are struggling to make ends meet,” Oxfam EU tax expert Chiara Putaturo said in a statement Thursday. “This inequality is not by accident, it is by design.”

As the report notes:

Over recent decades, EU countries have slashed taxes for the richest people and corporations, while leaving ordinary people to pay the price. Today, over 80% of tax revenue in the EU comes from taxes that fall primarily on ordinary citizens, while the wealthiest can exploit loopholes, tax havens, and special regimes to pay lower effective tax rates than nurses and teachers. In Belgium, for example, members of the richest 1% contribute just 23% tax of their incomes, which is half of what the average person contributes.

"Decades of tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations resulted in the superrich paying proportionally less taxes than ordinary citizens, eroding fairness, democracy, and social cohesion," the report states. "The EU lacks harmonized policies to curb extreme wealth concentration and tax avoidance of the wealthiest."

"Oxfam calls for bold reforms, such as an EU-wide or national tax on the superrich and transparency mechanisms like an EU assets registry, to fund social needs, climate action, and development," the publication adds. "Taxing the superrich is widely supported, is feasible, and is urgent."

The report contends that an EU-wide wealth tax of up to 5% on millionaires and billionaires could potentially bring in €286.5 billion ($331.3 billion) in yearly revenue, "enough to cover the annual needs of the new EU long-term budget proposal," while ending "harmful and wasteful" tax policies favoring the superrich would recover nearly €4 billion ($4.6 billion) annually.

While wealth taxes have been proposed in a number of European countries, including France—which according to The Economist has more billionaires than any other country in the EU—only Norway, Spain, and Switzerland have enacted a net wealth tax, according to Tax Foundation Europe.

After France's political crisis deepened this week with the resignation of another prime minister, French economist Gabriel Zucman—known globally for advocating for a wealth tax of at least 2%—called out his country's last three PMs for not taking the proposal seriously. He noted that “there is a very strong demand among the population for greater tax fairness and better taxation of the ultrarich.”

The Equals podcast and Belgian-Dutch philosopher Ingrid Robeyns on Thursday explored the benefits of a wealth cap.

"The idea of a poverty line is pretty well understood. No one should have so little that they can’t afford a roof over their head or go to bed hungry at night," Equals Bulletin said. "But billions of people around the world can’t afford these basics, despite the wealth increase of billionaires over the last decade being enough to end poverty 22 times over."

Embracing the concept of a wealth cap, the publication explained: "It’s about ensuring the needs of people and planet are met so everyone can flourish. You don’t have to be a communist to agree with a wealth cap, nor does it necessarily mean rejecting a market-based economy."

How much wealth is too much? Equals cited a New Economics Foundation (NEF)/Patriotic Millionaires survey published earlier this year in which one-third of millionaires said that the "extreme wealth line"—the point beyond which their fortune is considered harmful to society and the environment—should be set at $10 million.

"Society needs novel approaches to bring this complex topic to life," NEF's Fernanda Balata and Hollie Wright said at the time, "including narratives and practical tools more apt to address the vast cultural, moral, economic, and social barriers to tackling extreme wealth."