Re: An Enlightened Brexiteer.
Originally Posted by
JBR
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Interesting! Wasteful as well as dictatorial.
Is that a fact?
Whoever thinks we can do without Europe, finds every European budget too high. Anyone who thinks there should be more European cooperation will say the opposite. The bare facts show that the European budget is a fraction of the national budgets: less than 1 percent. That budget is always set for seven years because "Europe" mainly finances long-term projects such as the construction of cross-border gas pipelines (useful now that we want to be less dependent on Russian gas!), Erasmus scholarships or keeping the North Sea clean. Government leaders determine the level of the European budget, not "Brussels". Last year they pinned the European budget for 2014-2020 at EUR 908 billion. With that the budget went down for the first time in history, not up: in the past seven years it was still 1.12 percent of the national budgets. In a period in which Europe has expanded and has been given additional tasks (such as foreign service, banking supervision), Europe is doing more with less money. The average citizen spends around 65 cents a day on the EU. 94 percent of the European budget, by the way, goes back to the member states in the form of projects and subsidies. It is even national and local authorities that spend most of it, not Brussels (which is why the Court of Auditors always finds that irregularities occur mainly in the Member States). Citizens therefore certainly put money in Europe, but get everything back in a different way.
Of the European budget, 94 percent goes to projects (see above) and 6 percent goes to internal administration. Of that 6 percent, expenses, buildings, salaries and pensions are paid. This makes the EU super slim in spite of Indian stories. The European Commission, the day-to-day administration of the EU, has 32,000 permanent employees, including hundreds of interpreters and translators.