WRITTEN QUESTION E-1774/00

by Wolfgang Ilgenfritz (NI) to the Commission

(7 June 2000)

Subject: Net contributors in the European Union

Which countries are net contributors and which are net recipients in the European Union?

How are the contributions by individual Member States calculated in the European Union?

What are the payments by and to the Member States for the period 1995 to 2000?

Answer given by Mrs Schreyer on behalf of the Commission

(4 July 2000)

There is no universally accepted definition of the budgetary balance of the Member States in the Community budget and, consequently, it is often difficult to classify Member States, formally speaking, into groups of net recipients and net contributors. This is especially difficult for those Member States whose balance is very close to zero with the result that changes in the concept of the budgetary balance used turn a Member State from a net recipient to a net contributor. A clear example is the case of Belgium which, when including administrative Community expenditure in the data, appears to be a net recipient but is a net contributor when administrative Community expenditure is excluded. These and other difficulties with the definition of the budgetary balance have been discussed in the Commission report on the operation of the own resources system which is available on the Europa server in the World Wide Web, in the following address:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg19/en/agenda2000/ownresources/.

The report also includes tables of own resources contributions to and receipts from the Community budget by Member State as well as estimates of budgetary balances according to different definitions for the period 1992-1997 or 1998. Updated estimates of budgetary balances to 1998 can be found in the statistical annex of the June 1999 Commission services report on the allocation of 1998 EU operating expenditure by Member State, also available on the Europa service in the World Wide Web, in the following address:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg19/pdf/agenda2000/statdepenses98pdf.

The rules governing the own resources system are set out in the 1994 own resources Decision currently in force (a new own resources decision will come into force on 1 January 2001). Community own resources are the so-called traditional own resources (TOR) essentially customs duties and agricultural levies collected by the Member States and transferred to the Community budget after withholding 10 % of the amounts collected to cover collection costs, the VAT resource consisting of VAT revenues determined by the application of a call rate on the harmonised VAT base of each Member State, and the gross national product (GNP) resource which is called according to a rate necessary to balance the Community budget. The own resources contributions of the Member States are determined in the framework of the preparation of the annual Community budget. Annual own resources contributions can be read from the Community draft budget as well as from the final budget.

The latest data available for own resources contributions concern the year 2000 budget and the year 2001 preliminary draft budget and can be read directly from the budget documents. Data for expenditure by Member State are only available up to 1998 and can be found in the documents available at the World Wide Web addresses mentioned previously.