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This morning I heard an interview with a german politician in the DLF (Deutschlandfunk) and he said something like

Germany is already contributing 1/3 of the whole EU budget.

when asked, why he does not support the idea of the Euro bonds.

The podcast of this can be found here

Is this true? Does Germany really contribute 1/3 of the EU budget?

Ken Graham
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Dominik Reinert
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1 Answers1

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What exactly do you consider a state's "contribution"? Absolute payment? Net payment, substracting the payments the state receives in regional support, as part of the Common Agricultural Policy etc.?

But judging by the readily available numbers, the answer would be:

Germany does NOT contribute 1/3 of the whole EU budget.

But it is the primary contributor, at a bit over 22% for the 2014 budget, after contributing slightly under 20% in 2007-2013.

DevSolar
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    I do not even know what he meant, I just thought this was impossible. Your answer was exactly what I was looking for – Dominik Reinert May 09 '17 at 08:51
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    Looking at the net contribution of the 10 countries, which actually pay more than they get back in subsidies and investment support (numbers from 2014), Germany actually covers about 36% (17,658.5 of 49,612.2 million €). – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo May 09 '17 at 18:00
  • @Tor-EinarJarnbjo: But that is not what "contributing to the budget" means, is it? That would be "net payment" or something along those lines; the *budget* is higher, and those countries *getting* more than they pay are *still* contributing to it. – DevSolar Jun 07 '17 at 08:07