Brussels, 26/09/2002 (Agence Europe) - The most recent European Commission report on the sharing out of EU operational costs between Member States shows that for the first time since 1994, the United Kingdom in 2001 became a slight net beneficiary from the Community budget (+ EUR 707 million - 0.5% of its GDP) compared to the year before (2000). Spain is back in first place taking over from France as the largest beneficiary of Community funds and Italy is the country that has lost the most over the year (- EUR 2.20 billion. On Thursday, Commissioner Michaele Schreyer explained to the press during the presentation of this report that the United Kingdom had received more in 2001 than it had spent due to the unusually high amount of the UK rebate (€ 7 343 million in 2001 as compared to € 3 425 million in 2000) that was budgeted and paid in 2001. In response to a journalist who wanted to know if the current structural situation would be re-examined in 2004 (during examination of financial perspectives), Ms Schreyer explained that the discount constituted a Community acquis and formed part of the decision on "own resources". The UK experienced a large decrease of almost 6.1 bio € in VAT and GNP from its own resources payments to the EU budget compared to 2000.
In relative terms, the biggest net contributors were the richest member state Luxembourg (0.7 % of its GNP), the Netherlands (0.5 %), Sweden (0.4 %), Germany (0.3 %), Austria (0.3 %) and Belgium (0.2 %). Italy, France, Denmark and Finland were minor net contributors. Germany remains the largest contributor to the Community budget (EUR 19.7 billion out of a total of EUR 80.7 billion) followed by France (EUR14.4 billion), Italy (EUR 11.6 billion) and the United Kingdom (EUR 7.7 billion due to the EUR 7.3 billion discount).
This report also reveals the level of under-utilisation of loans in 2001, mainly in the area of structural actions. This has resulted in significant amendments in the amount of expenditure shared between Member States (modifications due to accounting methods rather than changes in orientation strategies, explained Ms Schreyer). Therefore in 2001, the total in operational expenditure rose to EUR 68.7 billion - 85.9% of total effective EU spending this year. With 19.8% of the total cake (EUR 13.6 billion), Spain is once again the main beneficiary of EU spending, ahead of France (16.5%) and which occupied first place in 2000. Germany is in its traditional third place (14.8%) ahead of Italy (12.5%). The United Kingdom with (8.4%) is the fifth largest beneficiary just in front of Greece (8.3%). Portugal is next (4.3%), Ireland (3.3%), Belgium (2.5%), the Netherlands (2.4%), Austria (2.0%), Denmark (1.9%), Sweden (1.6%), Finland (1.5%) and Luxembourg (0.1%). The most important change involves Spain, which has seen its operational expenditure rise by EUR 2.716 billion compared to the year 2000, which can principally be explained by the increase in structural and agricultural spending. The largest reduction concerns Italy, where allocated operating expenditure fell by € 2 196 million compared to 2000 (as opposed to Spain, only a small part of funds given to Italy came from Structural Funds).
In her presentation Ms Schreyer was keen to point out the important net financial transfers from the Community budget to Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland (the four so-called "cohesion" countries). In 2001, these transfers represented 3.5% of GDP in Greece, 1.5% in Portugal, 1.2% in Spain and 1.1% in Ireland. "These figures are in line with the re-distributive goal of the EU cohesion policy", declared Budget Commissioner Michaele Schreyer.
In a press statement, the Commission explains that the operational expenditure assessed in this report do not include the administrative expenditure and expenditure on external policy. In the calculation of the budget, only "own resources" of VAT and GDP are taken into account. The traditional "own resources" are excluded given that they are not considered as national contributions but as simply EU income.