European Banks: What's Going On?

[Louis VI the Fat]

if you paid attention to earlier years, you'll notice that France's net contribution used to be tiny until a few years ago. In 2003 the Netherlands, a country with 1/4 of the population of France, made a larger absolute contrubition to the EU budget than France. Click

I'm afraid your link mentions net contributions. I meant simply total contribution itself. Sorry, I used the confusing term absolute contribution.
My point was, that France will either use its EU funds for income support of farmers, or she will have to get compensation from other EU funds, or there needs to be a drastic reduction of French payments. As is, France is already one of the largest net contributors, and without the CAP she will become a singularly large net contributor. This is...'unlikely' to happen.
So, one can dislike the CAP - I do too - but even scrapping it altogether will not make much of a difference to France's net contribution in the long run.

Furthermore, not to be a pest, but your link strikes me as decidedly unreliable. I mean, it's newest publication is 'The EU - Germany's Fourth Reich!!1!'


I'm sorry, but British books and sites like this are exactly what I meant in my previous post:

I'll go out on a limb and guess that you read mostly English language foreign news. In the British press, there exists a persistant image of France as forever living off EU funds

Reality, of course, does not usually correspond with what the British tabloids (from the Daily Mail to the Telegraph) write.

~~~~~


To be fair to the British press, some journalists are paying attention:

Blair 'exaggerates EU contribution'

Britain has been exaggerating its net contribution to Brussels by over £500m during its row with France about how to finance the EU.

The exaggeration was revealed in the Treasury's delayed but definitive assessment of Britain's annual contribution, an obscure official document entitled Statement on the 2005 EC Budget, which has finally been released after a request under the Freedom of Information Act.

In their negotiations with the EU, both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have said that Britain's net contribution to the EU in 2003, the latest year for which complete numbers are available, was £3.7billion, considerably more than the £2.6billion the EU itself claims.

I want my money back! Labour has lying and spinning in Europe too!
*slams handbag on table*

[Louis VI the Fat]

if you paid attention to earlier years, you'll notice that France's net contribution used to be tiny until a few years ago.

Okay, so I checked the internet for reliable links for earlier years. I am having trouble finding online sources prior to the mid-90's.

Here is what I found, though. 1994, the last year of twelve EU members.

Some selected countries and figures:

Total contribution:
France 12,550.9
United Kingdom 6,417.4
Netherlands 4,245.9
Denmark 1,296.2
Italy 7,759.6

Net contribution
France -2,626.4
United Kingdom -1,158.8
Netherlands -1,829.9
Denmark 198.9
Italy -2,540.4

France was second in absolute contribution, directly behind behemoth Germany. And third in per capita net contribution, after The Netherlands and Germany. France paid well over twice as much as the UK, in both absolute and relative amount (per capita).
Worthy of note is that The Netherlands were very hard done by, and that wealthy Denmark actually received money.


I'm sorry. There is a perennial myth abroad that France lives off of EU funds. It is simply not true.


Furthermore, I knew I had struck sheer comedy gold when I stumbled upon this weird link. The numbers are directly from the lion's den: the written proceedings of the UK's House of Commons....a response to worried questions about foreign EU contributions.
Shall I call it 'What Every British Politician Secretly Knows But Is Too Scared Too Tell Britain?'

[Husar]

Keep in mind that since 1990 we have our little retarded(as in backwards) eastern soviet brother to drag along with us, yes we love him but he cost(s) a lot of money to get to western standards.

[Kralizec]

Okay, anyone can dig up an article on the web to support their viewpoint. So we'll have to find a source we both can agree on. How about europa.eu?
(apparently they didn't know how to put together a proper table back than, see the dates on top of the collumns)
Here you can see that the Dutch absolute (by wich I meant and still mean: as opposed to per capita) net contribution overtook the French one in 1998, wich took a dive and became a third of the Dutch one in 1999. I'm not sure what happened back then, but the UK went from being a small contributor in 1997 to net-outcontributing the French more than twice in 1998.

Here you can see that over the period 2000-2002, the Dutch was first twice that of France while in 2001 and 2002 they were roughly the same. I'm wondering how the UK came to be a net receiver in 2001

There's a lot of variations from year-to-year, and the general trend is that France started net-contributing more and more because of CAP reforms. In 2008 it's still nothing to be proud of though, and none of the traditional excuses fly: it's not an eastbloc country, it wasn't fascist dictatorship until recently and there aren't that many Irish people in France either.

I know the picture looks rosier for France if we focus only on the gross contribution to EU coffers, but as I've said, I consider the CAP a pork program and a huge slice of it's clientele lives in France. Since these leeches farmers are more likely to spend their bounty income in their own country, the French economy has an economic incentive to keep the CAP in addition to the fact that few politicians are willing to piss off their farmers. France de facto contributes less to other EU projects (most of wich serve some useful purpose) because a lot of French money that goes to Brussels is spent on French farmers first.

Regarding the British conspiracy, I rarely watch foreign telly (occasionally BBC, or Belgian or German news) and never read foreign newspapers. The truth is that France's financial contribution to the EU, compared to what they get back, is tiny for a first world economy of 60 million people. Anyone who can't see that is ignorant of the situation or French.

[Louis VI the Fat]

I shall accept the numbers from your source. I shall also accept your definition - the least favourable way for France of calculating EU contribution - of monetary per capita direct net contribution. Here's what we get then so far:

1990 - France 3rd of twelve.
1994 - France 3rd of twelve.
2000-2002 - France sixth of fifteen.
2006-2013 - France sixth of 27.

Is that 'tiny'? Or is that, like I argue, 'just below the absolute top tier'?

I would say that we simply differ in our definition of 'tiny'. But I won't. Our conversation started over the claim that 'With its net contribution France is the LAST European country that should raise a clamour about financial solidarity'.
I really do think this is the result of persistant myth, of standard anti-EU lore: that France is using the EU as a money making racket. This is simply not true. France is usually just behind the top tier of contributors.

(And I'll spare us all calculations - some quite reasonable in fact - that show why France is the largest EU contributor. )

[Louis VI the Fat]

Actually, I am not going to spare you all other means of calculations. How about comparing the contribution of member states with GDP per capita:

Countries with a higher GDP per capita who pay less per capita in net contribution than France:
Luxembourg, Ireland, Finland, Belgium.
Countries with a lower GDP per capita who pay more per capita in net contribution than France:
Germany.

France actually pays more per capita than four richer countries. And except for the hard-done by Germans - always paying too much for Europe - nobody who pays more than France has a lower income per capita. Or, apart from the Germans:
Everybody who is poorer than France pays less. Not everybody who pays less is poorer. Or:
Everybody who pays more than France is richer. Not everybody who is richer pays more.

France is three places higher than she ought to be according to GDP ranking. Why? Because France picks up her fair share of the bill and a little bit more on top.

[InsaneApache]

Sounds to me Louis like you're administering corporel punishment to a recently deceased equine. You almost convinced me.

[Kralizec]

To be Frank, I never knew the Belgians and Luxembourgers were such profiteers. But to be fair; Germany has its ossies and Belgians have the Walloons. As for Luxembourg, we should enslave these bandits and return them to the Dutch crown.

...

Let's keep two things in mind here:
1) I never said that France was living off EU funds. I specifically criticised Frances net contribution for being too small for such a stable and large economy.
2) nor did I say that there weren't other countries wich should cough up more money for the bill

Nevertheless, this at best average contribution to EU development is entirely at odds with the fact that France likes to monopolise all credit for EC achievements and its occasional petulant lecturing to other countries.