Only 9 EU countries pay for the other 18 – and the Commission wants to add 10 more?

Part II of a Facts4EU report on EU enlargement, which the UK has escaped thanks to Brexit

Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2024

Which countries pay into the EU and which take out?

On 01 May (2024) the EU Commission celebrated 20 years since its expansion in 2004 to include 10 more member countries. In the following few years they took in three more. All of them have received more than they put in to the EU budget, and have been benefiting ever since.

As a result of Brexit the British people are no longer paying for the bulk of these costs, although thanks to Theresa May’s disastrous ‘Divorce Bill’ they will keep on paying into the EU budget until 2064.

A Brexit Facts4EU.Org Series

Part I – EU celebrates 20 years of the British paying for its expansion
Part II - Which countries pay for the EU and which take? (This report)
Part III – The 10 new EU candidate countries lining up for the billions

So who pays in and who pays out?

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary

Total revenues versus total expenditures, 2022 (latest data)

All figures are for 2022, in billions of euros

Germany : € -16.7
France : € -7.3
Netherlands : € -2.6
Italy : € -2.1
Sweden : € -1.7
Austria : € -1.0
Ireland : € -0.7
Denmark : € -0.5
Finland : € -0.5

Malta : € 0.1
Cyprus : € 0.3
Slovenia : € 0.4
Estonia : € 0.9
Latvia : € 1.1
Croatia : € 1.5
Bulgaria : € 1.7
Lithuania : € 1.8
Slovakia : € 2.3
Luxembourg : € 2.3
Spain : € 2.5
Czech Rep : € 3.0
Portugal : € 3.1
Greece : € 4.1
Hungary : € 4.6
Romania : € 5.8
Belgium : € 6.5
Poland : € 12.5

[Source : EU Commission, May 2024.]

9 EU countries subsidised 18 other member countries. If the UK had still been a member, it would have been the second-highest contributor to this transference of wealth.

In Part III – the 10 new accession countries

In Part III of this series we will look at the 10 countries which the EU Commission has lined up to join its empire. All of them will be net recipients of funding from the small number of richer members. Being relatively poorer they will receive far more than they pay in.

Observations

Without Brexit, the British people would have been paying billions towards this wealth transfer.

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Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Tues 07 May 2024

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Reader Comments 9

1. Sparky , Tuesday, May 07, 2024, 07:04:

London and the South East props up the rest of the UK. Is it time we had a SExit. Northern Ireland is the region that receives the largest subsidy from London, maybe it's time we allowed NI to separate from the UK. Forget that, it's already underway thanks to Brexit.

2. Gazzablack , Tuesday, May 07, 2024, 08:14:

1, sparkless
.
And here he comes, a day late and a dollar short, comparing a unitary nation with a disparate group of 27 countries.
.
NI are not going to abandon the UK for the dubious charms of the ROI, and you've alluded to a reason within your own comment.
.
People in NI enjoy a higher standard of living than those in the ROI, underpinned by NI's position in the United Kingdom.
.
Don't be fooled by ROI's Leprechaun economics.
ROI's GDP figures are hugely inflated by wealth created by multinationals outside of the country, wealth which never actually enters the country.
The country's citizens see no benefit

3. terence patrick hewett , Tuesday, May 07, 2024, 09:20:

Irish health service isn't as good as the NHS.

4. NH , Tuesday, May 07, 2024, 09:33:

1. Sparky, "London and the South East props up the rest of the UK"
You seem to determined to show how ignorant you are and at the same time expose your real motives for wanting to join the EU.
.
The UK Is a democratic nation with a level of shared wealth, shared taxation, shared welfare system, shared services, shared infrastructure etc. The EU is a collection of nations that are primarily a trading block and with each nation pursuing it's own interests. The reason Germany pays to be a member of the EU is not out of a sense of altruism it's because traditionally it make economic sense for them to do so. Germany's economic history shows that to survive it needs an undervalued currency (euro) and protected market for it's exports of mainly manufactured goods. The UK economy is completely different to the German economy, we need unrestricted access to world markets.
.
If you are suggesting the UK should share it's wealth and income with any country that is bribed to join the EU, even though this provides no economic benefit to the UK, you should be honest about this. The EU system has never been a level system. Any EU citizen could come to the UK and live off the welfare system but a UK citizen could not go to an EU country and claim welfare benefits. Hence the EU system does not suit our welfare and service (NHS etc) system.
.
Any membership club that can only get new members to join by paying them to join is not a stable club. As soon as the hand outs are reduced or stop there will be a very different EU.

5. Michael E Wood , Tuesday, May 07, 2024, 15:25:

I lived in Luxembourg. It is wealthy. Stuffed full of EU institutions and assorted hangers on, plus lots of Banks and yet it is a net recipient as is Belgium with the EU commision and NATO. The EU has a rotten subsidised heart.

6. Sparky , Tuesday, May 07, 2024, 17:07:

Headlines and summary from Politico last year.
.
A united Ireland looks more likely thanks to Brexit, new study finds
Joint research by Belfast’s two main universities finds plurality of Northern Ireland residents think they’ll be out of the UK within next 2 decades.

7. NH , Tuesday, May 07, 2024, 17:45:

6. Sparky, "plurality of Northern Ireland residents think they’ll be out of the UK within next 2 decades"
According to a previous survey commissioned by the European Council a majority of EU citizens believe the EU will fall apart within 20 years !

8. Arthur , Tuesday, May 07, 2024, 20:45:

I was reminded of this report :- https://facts4eu.org/news/2... in which the UK paid the EU about £9 billion in 2022. So we would still have been the second biggest contributor then despite not being a member of the EU.
Whatever the continuing UK payments to the EU were planned for this year we can add the £2.2 billion for the Horizon program. We appear to be mugs.

9. Ashley Great Britain , Wednesday, May 08, 2024, 07:28:

8 Arthur.
-
Our political establishment are the mugs, They certainly know how to make us all worse off.

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