Brussels blog

EU budget negotiations, which kick off this week, are about three things: the size of the overall pot of money; which countries will pay into that pot; and which countries will get money out of it.

For those following the debate, here is your cut-out-and-keep Excel guide to those questions, plucked from 2009, the latest year for which figures have been compiled.

Over 70 per cent of the EU’s money comes from five countries: Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the UK, in that order. But most of the money comes back to them, too. France (with its EU farm subsidies) gets the biggest amount back, followed by Germany, Spain, Italy and Poland (with its farmers and its roads funded by EU development funds).

As the debate gets underway for the next seven-year budget framework, we thought we’d crunch the numbers to establish who the biggest winners and losers are. (Check out the outcomes for all 27 countries in this spreadsheet)

In short: Northern European countries like Germany, the Netherlands and Scandinavia pay money out to their eastern and southern counterparts – and to Luxembourg, which is by far the biggest net beneficiary per head (thanks to all those eurocrats based there).

Eleven of 27 countries are net contributors to the budget (all the figures include the customs duties collected by each country and passed on directly to the EU). As you might expect, they are broadly the ones who signed on to British-led campaigns to cap or cut the budget.

The Danes are the biggest losers here, paying in €211 more a year than they get out. That’s mainly because they don’t have a British-style rebate, which helps keep down the tabs of the Dutch and Swedes as well.

Besides Luxembourg, the biggest beneficiaries per head are the Baltic states, Greece, Hungary and Poland – mostly countries that could use a bit of a fillip. That’s mainly because of their low gross domestic product, which is still the main factor determining how much a country pays into the budget.

All that is up for grabs in the upcoming negotiations. Both the amounts paid in and out will change. By and large, an increase in development funds, now worth €50bn a year, will equate to a boost for the current net beneficiaries in southern and eastern Europe. A fall in agricultural subsidies would hit France the most.

On the other side of the equation, how the money is raised also affects countries’ net position. If the EU does pass a financial transaction tax – a rather big ‘if’ – that estimated €50bn would essentially come from Britain and Germany, home to the continent’s major bourses.

Finally, the rebates, which act to cap some countries’ bills. France and Italy currently pay over €1bn a year to cover Britain’s lower contribution to the EU budget. If that gets cut, perhaps someone will come up with a reverse rebate for Luxembourg, the bloc’s richest country, which gets €2,365 per head more than it puts in to the pot.

See the full data via Google Docs

With thanks to our intern Maël Guilhon for data crunching assistance.