Thanks to Brexit, UK will not pay over £18bn towards EU’s huge new 2022 budget

Yesterday Brussels reached agreement on its total 2022 budget of £146bn

Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2021

Facts4EU.Org summarises what the UK will no longer be paying for, due to Brexit

Yesterday the EU Commission announced that agreement was finally reached in Brussels for its 2022 budget, starting in just two months’ time.

With the EU Commission “acting as an honest broker”, it said the EU Council and the EU Parliament had reached “an informal political agreement on the budget for 2022.” In practice this means that a sum of €170.6bn (approx £145.8bn pounds) will be spent by the EU Commission next year, and the spending areas have been agreed.

This money will mostly come from the contributions which the small number of net payers make to the EU’s budget. Without them, the EU would be bankrupt. In previous years the UK has ended up paying over 12.5% of the total. For 2022 this would have amounted to over £18bn pounds.

Unfortunately, thanks to the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement originally agreed by Theresa May, part of this money will still be paid by the UK to the EU, despite the fact that the UK left formally on 01 Jan 2021. (See below.)

What will the EU Commission spend its £146bn on, next year?

The wrangling which has taken place this year is commonplace – it happens every year in Brussels. Whilst the overall EU budget is agreed for a period of seven years (2021-2027), every year the allocation of the total for each year must be thrashed out.

Facts4EU.Org can now reveal what the EU will be splashing out on, in 2022.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary

How the EU Commission will spend £146bn euros of EU citizens’ money next year

  1. Single Market, Innovation and Digital : £18.4 bn
  2. Cohesion, Resilience and Values : £53.0 bn
  3. Common Agricultural Policy + Green Agenda : £48.4 bn
  4. Migration and Border Management : £2.6 bn
  5. Security and Defence : £1.1 bn
  6. Payments to Possible New Joiners + Foreign Aid : £11.0 bn
  7. EU Admin : £9.1 bn
  8. "Thematic special instruments" : £2.2 bn

Total appropriations : £145.8 bn

© Brexit Facts4EU.Org - click to enlarge

This isn’t the end of the story

When it comes to EU finances, things are never what they appear. Below we mention just two of the “extras” that the UK would have been in for, which do not appear on the EU’s main summary.

  • The €5bn off-budget “EU Peace Facility”, not included in the EU’s figures – an extra defence budget controlled by the Commission which doesn’t appear in the official figures
  • Continuing payments to Turkey to bribe them not to send more migrants to the EU (€6bn to date, and counting)

It is also worth mentioning that whilst payments to the EU’s wannabe member states (plus foreign aid) are set at €12.9bn, its commitments are 33% higher, at €17.2bn. This difference will have to be paid in the following years.

Finally, £53bn of the total in our table above is for ‘cohesion’. A key part is the 'Cohesion Fund' that only pays out to less developed EU countries and which has been giving them enviable new motorways, railways, and other infrastructure. In the last Multiannual Framework this amounted to €63.3 billion euros. The UK was excluded completely and never received a penny from this massive fund, despite paying for a significant proportion of it.

UK has paid EU £41bn from Referendum to end-2020… and will keep on paying

In January Facts4EU.Org revealed that the United Kingdom had paid the EU £41bn in continuing contributions, from the Leave vote in 2016 to the end of 2020.

We have also shown how – under the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement - the UK will continue to pay into the EU budget until 2064.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary

The so-called “EU divorce bill”, which has no basis in law as we have previously shown

© Brexit Facts4EU.Org - click to enlarge

The hidden EU extras

As ever, we must point out that the official figures for the UK’s contributions to the EU do not include its large payments into the EU’s ‘off-budget’ funds. This has always been a serious omission by HM Treasury officials and others, when they present information which is then reported by the mainstream media.

Observations

The EU Commission as "an honest broker"?

The EU Commission's description of itself as "an honest broker" in the discussions between the EU Council and the EU Parliament on the budget for next year almost defies belief. It is the EU Commission that spends the money it receives from member countries.

Facts4EU.Org has called out the Commission on countless occasions for its propaganda over the years. For it to pretend yesterday that it's somehow a disinterested party in these proceedings is, frankly, for the birds.

The UK's lucky escape

With an EU budget in 2022 of £146bn, the UK would have been in for a sizeable proportion of this, if it were not for Brexit. In our report above we have used a very conservative estimate of 12.5% of the cost, being the absolute minimum which the British people would have been paying towards the political priorities of the Brussels autocrats next year.

As it is, and as a result of the early agreement by Theresa May when she was still PM to pay the EU a 'divorce bill' which has no basis in EU or UK law, the British taxpayer will still be paying monies to the EU until the year 2064.

The best we can say is that at least the United Kingdom will be paying a great deal less towards the priorities of the Brussels Eurocrats, and far less in a wealth transfer to poorer EU countries which the Commission portrays as its own largesse, than would have been the case if the British people had not voted Leave in 2016.

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[ Sources: EU Commission | Office for Budget Responsibility | HM Treasury | House of Commons Library service ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Wed 17 Nov 2021

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