Alphen, Netherlands. 25
February. Italy has gone to the
polls and Greece and Spain are facing continuing anti-austerity
demonstrations. Here in the Netherlands
EU Council President Herman van Rompuy yesterday appeared on Dutch TV to tell
the ever more sceptical Dutch that the Netherlands could not survive without
the EU. Last week I highlighted the
concerns of my Dutch neighbours that ‘Brussels’ does nothing for them and they
are tired of being lectured by Eurocrats and southern and eastern European politicians
about the need for ‘solidarity’. Since
that blog I have been inundated with comments from varying degrees of
Europhilia and fanaticism berating my neighbours for their lack of aforesaid
‘solidarity’. So, how much does
EU ‘solidarity’ cost?
The International
Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated the size of the EU economy (gross domestic
product or GDP) in 2012 at €12,629 trillion ($17,578 trillion). The 8 February agreement by EU heads of state
and government set the budget limit at 1% of the EU's GDP for the 2014-2020 EU Budget or €1.26 trillion ($1.76 trillion). According to Open Europe this year
the biggest net contributors to the EU Budget will be Germany €14 billion
($18.6 billion), France €9 billion ($12 billion), UK €9 billion ($12 billion), Italy
€6 billion ($8 billion) and the Netherlands €5 billion ($6.6 billion).
Official
Dutch figures set the size of the Dutch population in 2011 at 16,696,000. Therefore, the cost of the EU Budget to each
Dutch citizen is roughly €299 ($396) this year.
The cost of the EU Budget per annum to my Dutch neighbour’s
family of five is thus around €1500 ($1988) per year IF the Budget is
confirmed. However, if the EU Parliament
carries out its threat to veto the Budget then this year’s planned spending
will be rolled over at 2% of Europe’s GDP, which will cost my by no means
wealthy, ordinary Dutch neighbours about €3000 per annum. There is a lot they could do with €3000
($3977) to ease their very real worries.
No wonder EU Parliament leader Martin Schulz wants a secret vote so he can again hide the truth from my Dutch neighbours. So much for democratic transparency!
However, that is not
the true cost of solidarity. One must also add the
cost of the various bail outs to southern European countries and the debasing of the Euro due to the printing of money by the European Central
Bank (ECB).
It is hard to get accurate figures for this mainly because governments,
the European Commission and the ECB are determined to keep the true cost of the
Eurozone crisis from my Dutch neighbours.
However, estimates vary between €10,000 ($13,200) and €15,000 ($20,000)
per annum, per head (and possibly as high as €20,000 ($26,500)).
There are also
additional hidden costs. The Dutch
Vice-President of the European Commission Neelie Kroes said yesterday
that as much as 4% of the so-called Cohesion and Structural Fund is lost to
national corruption or “silly projects”
She highlighted a new EU-funded (i.e. funded by my Dutch neighbour)
Polish highway between Warsaw and Poznan that is sound-proofed even though it passes through empty fields.
Therefore, my Dutch
neighbours and their fellows are seeing €13 billion ($17.2 billion) of their money
effectively stolen or misappropriated each year.
The madness does not
stop there. Some hailed the EU Budget as
a victory because for the first time it was cut. However, what the Budget also reveals is that
far from trying to invest out of the crisis by modernising Europe’s economy
most member-states and the European Commission simply want to preserve vested
interests. In other words the EU is
investing in the past.
According to the BBC
the snappily-named Multi-Annual Financial Framework (MAFF) or EU Budget is
to be spent in 2013 as follows: Cohesion and Structural Funds €325 billion
($450 billion), Competition and Growth €125.6 billion ($166.5 billion), the
Common Agricultural Fund €278 billion ($368.6 billion) (even though agriculture
represents only 2% of the EU GDP), “EU as a Global Player” (aid) €59
billion ($78.2 billion), Security and Citizenship €15.7 billion ($20.7
billion), Rural Development €95 billion ($126 billion) and the worryingly
entitled “off-budget spending” €37 billion ($49 billion).
In other words only 13%
of the EU Budget is being invested on preparing European for the
hyper-competitive twenty-first century global economy. The rest is being spent on propping up
failure. It also means that when
Italians, Greeks and Spaniards protest about austerity they are really asking
my modest Dutch neighbours to go on indefinitely funding a way of life they cannot afford. In effect, they want the EU to become a mutual impoverishment pact.
Now, like me my Dutch
neighbours are prepared to pay so much for ‘solidarity’ as they genuinely feel
for the suffering of their fellow Europeans.
However, what they want to see above all is an end to this crisis. For them that means modernising southern
European economies (and others) in return for their ‘aid’. However, there seems to be little appetite
for that in Athens, Madrid, Rome or Brussels.
And they certainly do not want more ‘government’ by a remote Euro-Aristocracy
in Brussels Centre in the name of 'stability' to fix a crisis they in fact caused.
Therefore, Mr van
Rompuy, unless you and your elite colleagues understand my Dutch neighbours and
quickly the question for them will not be whether or not the Dutch can survive
without the EU, but whether or not the Dutch can survive with the EU. The cost of
‘solidarity’ is fast becoming far too high to bear for the relatively few who have to pay for a crisis that is by no
means over.
Julian Lindley-French
