Britain should not pay more than other countries  Britain’s rebate is completely justified. Without it Britain would pay far more into the EU than it ever received back. The UK government argues “Without the rebate, the UK's net contribution as a percentage of national income would be twice as big as France's, and 1.5 times bigger than Germany's.” [1] This is because most of the EU’s budget goes to pay for the costs of the Common Agricultural Policy and regional aid programmes. The UK’s farming sector is a very small part of the economy, and very few of its regions count as poor in Europe-wide terms, so Britain receives little funding back from the EU. Meanwhile as a result of new members joining the EU development funding has been taken away from poorer areas of Britain, many of which will no longer be eligible, to be redirected to Eastern and Central European countries which need it much more, [2] Britain’s net contribution to the EU budget will go up .The rebate recognises this and returns two-thirds of the UK’s net EU contribution (payments less receipts) every year. Even with the rebate, the UK is still the second biggest net contributor (proportional to population) of all the EU states. Over the past ten years Britain has contributed 2½ times as much to the EU budget as France has [3] - and without the rebate it would have been 15 times as much!  [1] BBC News, ‘EU budget commissioner calls for UK rebate to end’, 2010  [2] European Union Committee, ‘Future Financing of the European Union’, 2005, p.154  [3] The Economist, ‘About a rebate’, 2005