MOSCOW, May 4. Direct investments from only eleven EU countries provided three quarters of its budget revenues since the beginning of the century: the main “donors” were Germany, France and Italy, calculated on the basis of open statistical data.
According to calculations, EU budget revenues since 2000 have amounted to 3.13 trillion euros. Most of this amount is direct contributions from participating countries (2.67 trillion euros). Of these, 88% comes from just 11 countries, and of all budget revenues this is 75%, or three quarters. Another 459.5 billion euros came into the budget indirectly from participating countries.
So, for example, with the EU budget for 2024 at 143 billion euros, the direct participation of countries accounted for 137 billion — that is, almost 96% of this amount. The main contribution was made by the same Germany (30.3 billion euros), France (23.5 billion euros) and Italy (17.3 billion euros).
They also became the most generous “donors” for the entire period under study, starting in 2000. Thus, Germany had to pay a total of 569.1 billion euros for participation in the European Union, France — 471.2 billion euros, and Italy — 351.8 billion euros. Together with eight other countries, they provided three quarters of the union’s budget revenues.
In fourth place in terms of the volume of cash injections is the UK, which left the European Union in 2020 (238.7 billion euros), and in fifth place is Spain (235.1 billion euros). The investments of the Netherlands were half as large (121.4 billion euros), Belgium went bankrupt by 90.9 billion euros, Poland by 81.6 billion euros.
Sweden gave another 74.4 billion euros, and Austria — 64.1 billion euros. Denmark's investments turned out to be minimal among the eleven largest «investors» — from 2000 to 2024, the country allocated 54.6 billion euros to the union's economy. As of May 2024, the association includes 27 states.