Will May Pay or Hope it Fades Away? £55b exit bill...

[PurpleMoonlight]

Jockman said:

Seriously? Poland pays in more than the U.K.?

Can you please exapand on this. Any figures?

He is expressing it as a percentage of gross national income, not hard cash.

[TooMany2cvs]

Mothersruin said:

Crazy logic and maths.

Carry on.

Jockman said:

Seriously? Poland pays in more than the U.K.?

Can you please exapand on this. Any figures?

Oh, sorry. I forgot the links to the figures. Yep, Poland pays in a higher share of GNI than the UK does.

https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/countrie...
https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/countrie...

The UK's post-rebate figure was calculated taking €13bn contrib from the fullfact link above.

[Jockman]

///ajd said:

TooMany2cvs said:

Let's put the drop in payments into perspective, shall we?

EU budget for 2016 was €155bn.
UK net contribution - after rebate and expenditure - was about €8.6bn in 2016.

So that's about 5.5% of the total expenditure...

Yes, I'm surprised more haven't realised this is a bit of a non-issue.

Just delay a few new Spanish airports that aren't needed anyway.

You've lost me. Is the EU budget the same as EU income? If so, is it based solely on member contributions or are there other income streams?

[TooMany2cvs]

Jockman said:

You've lost me. Is the EU budget the same as EU income? If so, is it based solely on member contributions or are there other income streams?

I took EU expenditure ("commitments") as the budget. Payments from members are slightly lower.
http://ec.europa.eu/budget/news/article_en.cfm?id=...

[Jockman]

PurpleMoonlight said:

Jockman said:

Seriously? Poland pays in more than the U.K.?

Can you please exapand on this. Any figures?

He is expressing it as a percentage of gross national income, not hard cash.

Is that the same as saying Poland doesn't actually pay in more than the U.K.?

[sidicks]

TooMany2cvs said:

I took EU expenditure ("commitments") as the budget. Payments from members are slightly lower.
http://ec.europa.eu/budget/news/article_en.cfm?id=...

Jockman said:

Is that the same as saying Poland doesn't actually pay in more than the U.K.?

??

[///ajd]

Jockman said:

You've lost me. Is the EU budget the same as EU income? If so, is it based solely on member contributions or are there other income streams?

Funding the EU is spent on various things - running the office etc., but also on projects to fund everything form comics with fire engines in them to infrastructure like the lovely roads in Wales (not joking they are great) and other large scale stuff like the famous new Spanish airport.

If you cut the EU budget by 5% (UK contrib), it just means there is less to go around to fund e.g. infra.

Sure it will piss some off but the end of the world it isn't, by any stretch.

[TooMany2cvs]

sidicks said:

TooMany2cvs said:

I took EU expenditure ("commitments") as the budget. Payments from members are slightly lower.
http://ec.europa.eu/budget/news/article_en.cfm?id=...

Jockman said:

Is that the same as saying Poland doesn't actually pay in more than the U.K.?

??

Like I said...

TooMany2cvs said:

(It's just that the EU spends more in Poland than in the UK - because they need it more...)

That's looking at net - so the payments in less the expenditure.
I'm talking about the payments in. The only difference between that and the £350m figure is that I've remembered the rebate's existence.

[Jockman]

///ajd said:

Jockman said:

You've lost me. Is the EU budget the same as EU income? If so, is it based solely on member contributions or are there other income streams?

Funding the EU is spent on various things - running the office etc., but also on projects to fund everything form comics with fire engines in them to infrastructure like the lovely roads in Wales (not joking they are great) and other large scale stuff like the famous new Spanish airport.

If you cut the EU budget by 5% (UK contrib), it just means there is less to go around to fund e.g. infra.

Sure it will piss some off but the end of the world it isn't, by any stretch.

Thanks mon ami.

If the UK contribution was so low, why was the divorce bill such a red line? Surely trade should have been the focus, no?

[PurpleMoonlight]

Jockman said:

You've lost me. Is the EU budget the same as EU income? If so, is it based solely on member contributions or are there other income streams?

http://ec.europa.eu/budget/explained/budg_system/financing/fin_en.cfm#own_res

[sidicks]

TooMany2cvs said:

That's looking at net - so the payments in less the expenditure.
I'm talking about the payments in. The only difference between that and the £350m figure is that I've remembered the rebate's existence.

TooMany2cvs said:

Oh, wait... You think that Poland pays some kind of negative membership fee, right? Nope.

So taking more substantially more out than they pay in, is nothing like a 'negative membership fee' ?

Righto.

[Catatafish]

Jockman said:

Thanks mon ami.

If the UK contribution was so low, why was the divorce bill such a red line? Surely trade should have been the focus, no?

I suspect it was a gauge to see what our resolve was: more or less spineless.

[///ajd]

Jockman said:

Thanks mon ami.

If the UK contribution was so low, why was the divorce bill such a red line? Surely trade should have been the focus, no?

Not sure really - just wanted to ensure the UK coughed up, presumably as they didn't trust UK brexiteers to do a trade deal then say "go whistle" over the money when it was too late in the negotiations. As if they would eh?

The EU probably wanted certainty over the money, one way or another, so it can plan. Having less money is one thing, not being sure how much you might have is also a planning PITA.

A trade deal is in the interests of the EU as well as the UK, but it is also a dangerous opportunity for them (against our interests) so it will be very interesting to see how it pans out. Sadly inflicting uncertainty on our business is worse for us than it is for the EU - if it has to make choices, business is more likely to seek EU stability than gamble on an unknown UK tbc trade utopia. So unfortunately delaying a transition confirmation is good for the EU, as they may hoover up some impatient GDP.

[PurpleMoonlight]

Jockman said:

Thanks mon ami.

If the UK contribution was so low, why was the divorce bill such a red line? Surely trade should have been the focus, no?

I think it's to clearly define the divorce bill from the trade agreement, to avoid people claiming the UK was required to buy the latter.

[Jockman]

PurpleMoonlight said:

Jockman said:

You've lost me. Is the EU budget the same as EU income? If so, is it based solely on member contributions or are there other income streams?

http://ec.europa.eu/budget/explained/budg_system/financing/fin_en.cfm#own_res

Thanks PM. GNI is obviously the largest one.

[anonymous-user]

PurpleMoonlight said:

Jockman said:

Seriously? Poland pays in more than the U.K.?

Can you please exapand on this. Any figures?

He is expressing it as a percentage of gross national income, not hard cash.

This is the Net payment balance (including the UK rebate so real amount we paid) based on GNI% for 2015, which were the figures available during the referendum.The UK paid the most in GNI terms than anyone, more than even Germany.



And this is it in money, in Euro's



For countries like Poland, it would be silly to suggest you use the gross payments figures to study the impact, because the Net payments are so large a proportion of their GDP, removing the EU payments would mean their domestic tax take would have to increase substantially to replace the lost payment income and continue to fund the projects.

UK EU based expenditure into the economy is just 0.3% of our GNI, Polands is 3.25%, Bulgaria's is 6.38%. The eastern block countries certainly will feel the loss of the UK funds.

[TooMany2cvs]

sidicks said:

So taking more substantially more out than they pay in, is nothing like a 'negative membership fee' ?

They're very separate figures, calculated separately.

Payments in - happens whatever.

Expenditure - happens based on need.

The ideal would be to have £0 expended in your country - because it means there's no need for EU funds to regenerate areas.

[Mothersruin]

No - the ideal for any country would be to have everything paid for by other countries - like going to the pub and never having to get a round in.

The worst would be to pay loads in and get far less in return - like going to the pub and ringing the bell every time you want a pint.

[anonymous-user]

And then having to borrow the money from the loan shark to pay for that bill whilst knowing if the st hit the fan for the people you are buying the drinks, you would have to pay for that bail out too.

[paulrockliffe]

Bizarre claims. EU spends 155bn Euros, so our contribution is only 5.5%, yet there's a chart up above that show the overall net contribution to the EU is only 50bn euros.

Whatever way you want to square that, taking our 14bn out is not 5.5% of the whole picture.

By that logic all the EU needs to do to make the UK problem go away is add 10bn onto everyones fees and then give everyone another 10bn back, that reduces the impact to under 1% of the EUs income, which is definitely just a rounding error. Sorted.