EU member states must contribute financially to the overall funding of the EU. The European Commission puts forwards a budget which is approved by the European Parliament before the start of each year. The vast majority will be spent on aid to farmers, rural development and aid to poorer regions.
It has been widely reported that the UK gives £350 million per week to the EU.
This figure has been scrutinised and found to be misleading by the UK Office for National Statistics. They found for the last officially available accounting period (2014):
- The UK’s official gross payments to the EU amounted to £19.1 billion
- This is 2.4% out of total UK government spending of £798 billion
- The UK is eligible for a rebate of its EU membership cost of £4.4 billion
- This rebate sum never leaves the country
- £14.7 billion was the UK’s 2014 annual contribution towards the EU
- £4.8 billion of EU funding that year was sent back to the UK
- These funds included £1.1 billion which came back through the European Regional Development Fund and £2.3 billion through the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund.
UK government’s net contribution to the EU – that is the difference between the money it paid to the EU and the money it received – was £9.9 billion in 2014.
This equates to £190 million per week – in other words, 42 pence per UK person, per day.
These figures exclude money from the EU that also comes back to the UK private sector (for example to fund research in UK universities). This was valued slightly lower still.
Source: ons.gov.uk (Visual Analysis of the funding)
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