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Italy Travel Ideas

Tuesday 1 July 2014

Italy Is One of the EU Largest Net Contributors

Net receipts from the EU budget, based on 2009 budget data (negative amounts show net contributions)
Member state Per capita

(in euros)
Percentage

(of national GDP)
Total amount

(in million euros)
Austria −59.7 −0.18 −499
Belgium 90.0 0.29 968
Bulgaria 77.4 1.76 589
Cyprus −34.0 −0.18 −27
Czech Republic 150.4 1.11 1,575
Germany −107.3 −0.37 −8,797
Denmark −211.0 −0.53 −1,163
Estonia 416.2 4.02 558
Finland −113.8 −0.36 −606
France −100.4 −0.34 −6,461
Greece 267.2 1.30 3,009
Hungary 265.1 2.68 2,660
Ireland −35.0 −0.09 −156
Italy −100.7 −0.41 −6,046
Lithuania 438.2 5.33 1,468
Luxembourg 2364.5 3.05 1,167
Latvia 218.8 2.62 495
Malta 17.4 0.13 7
Netherlands −90.2 −0.26 −1,488
Poland 160.5 1.66 6,119
Portugal 196.4 1.25 2,087
Romania 74.8 1.24 1,609
Spain 9.7 0.04 444
Sweden −43.6 −0.13 −404
Slovenia 92.8 0.55 189
Slovakia 88.8 0.78 481
United Kingdom −62.7 −0.24 −3,865


One William Gruff left this comment to my post The Looting of Italy:
Italy is not and has never been a nett contributor to the EU. Not a nett contributor means not a contributor at all in precisely the way that being a public sector worker means not a tax payer. In the same way, Scotland makes no contribution to the 'U'K, despite partisan claims to the contrary.
This sums up the kind of widespread ignorance and prejudice about Italy, largely due to media distortions, that my Italian journalist friend Alessandra Nucci laments in her article, "The Looting of Italy", that attracted that comment.

The comment requires a documented reply.

Above is a table for the year 2009 reproduced from Wikipedia, based on research by Deutsche Bank Research. The net contributors are shown in blue.

Wikipedia says:
The four largest net contributors in absolute terms are Germany, France, Italy, UK.
The four largest net contributors in per capita terms are Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy.
The four largest net contributors as a proportion of GDP are Denmark, Italy, Germany, Finland.
Only Italy and Germany are among the four largest net contributors in all categories. It's also easy to see from the table that in absolute terms Italy contributes almost double the net receipts from the UK, the country from which our commenter friend William Gruff hails.

As you can see, in total amount Italy is third, little behind France, which Italy, though, overtakes in terms of per capita contributions. As a proportion of GDP Italy comes before both Germany and France, and is second only to Denmark, an economic lightweight compared to Italy.

Also observe how Italy is usually placed by the international media together with Spain, Portugal and Greece, which are among the largest net recipients - along with Luxembourg and some Eastern-European countries -, therefore at the other end of the spectrum.

A table showing member states' net contributions to the EU’s annual budget for the period from 2000 to 2011, compiled by the European Commission, can be found here. Again, somewhat counterintuitively, if the figure is negative it means that the country has received fewer payments from the EU than it should and is therefore a net contributor to the EU’s budget.

This table shows again that, except in 2000, Italy has been a large net contributor all these years.

Even the German news magazine Der Spiegel wrote at the end of 2012, accompanying the article with a clear graph:
Italy is the country that most contributes to the European budget...

Compared to the 2011 Gross Domestic Product, no other country has contribuited so much to the European budget as Italy...

...but, despite its strong debt, [Italy] has not yet received a cent from the various European "parachutes".

6 comments:

  1. William Gruff is an obvious "little Englander" as his comments regarding Scottish tax contributions to the UK highlight. He is a troll therefore his " opinions " regarding Italy, Scotland, indeed anything are irrelevant and can be ignored.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Italy has the largest gold horde in Europe. It's been purposely destabilized so it will eventually be forced to sell it on the world market and relieve the acute shortage of physical gold. I expect India, another huge storehouse of gold, to be destabilized as well.

      Delete
    2. A Scotch 'intellectual' writes ... the usual infantile rubbish, 'therefore his " opinions " ... indeed anything are irrelevant and can be ignored.'

      The phrase 'little Englander' is now so over-used as to be meaningless and is, like accusations of 'racism', therefore a broken stick. I should buy a new dictionary of Scotch insults were I you. Scotland makes no nett contribution to the 'U'K economy and the dissolution of the laughably misnamed 'United' Kingdom can only be good for England.

      Thread ended.

      Delete
  2. he got it wrong here but he is no troll - he like myself comment on www.englandcalling.wordpress.com may i also plug my attempt at satire www,davidsfirst.blogspot,co.uk

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am not sure if my original post has been received. My question was about the possible Ebola outbreak in Italy. The Italian government is trying to down play the rumors because of fear of how the public will react and blaming racists groups. However, from what I read in the news, it was World Health Organization (WHO) that first raised concerns about the spread to Italy. Will the Italian people believe there government? Also, international aid organizations state there are about 500,000 refugees in North Africa planning on crossing into Italy this year. How long can Italy sustain such a massive immigration wave? The U.S. has about 1 million illegal aliens enter our country every year, but we have a population of over 300 million or more than 4x Italy.

    ReplyDelete
  4. According to research done by Deutsch Bank AG in 2011, the top five (net) contributors are:

    _ Germany (€8,797 millions)

    _ France (€6,461 millions)

    _ Italy (€6,046 millions)

    _ United Kingdom (€3,865 millions)

    _ Denmark (€1,163 millions).


    the top five (net) contributors by calculating and comparing contribution as a proportion of GDP are:

    _ Denmark (0.53 %)

    _ Italy (0.41%)

    _ Germany (0.37 %)

    _ Finland (0.36 %)

    _ France (0.34 %)

    The top five contributors using per capita terms are:

    _ Denmark (€211.0 / person)

    _ Finland (€113.8 / person)

    _ Germany (€107.3 / person)

    _ Italy (€100.7 / person)

    _ France (€100.4 / person).

    These are objective datae not anti-Italian rant!

    ReplyDelete

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