Quote:
Originally Posted by Xellos-_^
why does the EU need a trillion dollar budget?
it doesn't run a military
it doesn't run a policy force
it doesn't run a welfare system
what does the EU run that needs a trillion dollars?
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What Zakoo, Rahan, and Don- wrote... more specifically
last year:
45% aid to PIIGS (until '90s), East Germany (until '00s), and for the past decade Eastern Europe.
31% the controversial agricultural programs, that despite being unanimously hated, without it almost no small/mid-range farm will survive in west and north Europe (in the south they are already destroyed by it).
11% environmental policies
6% foreign aid (mainly bribing former english, french, and dutch colonies' politicians)
6% The Bureaucracy of Brussels
1% funding social care, equality in employment, and modernization of buisness and governance programs
ECB and rescue packages are mainly self-funded, since they bring back more money than they give (that is subject to change). But since they were based on former public banks, one can also claim that they originated from tax-payers, but that's a very complicated issue
A more interesting statistic is
the allocation of their GDP to the EU budget (2009):
-0.53% Denmark
-0.41% Italy
-0.37% Germany
-0.36% Finland
-0.34% France
-0.26% Netherlands
-0.24% UK
-0.18% Austria
-0.18% Cyprus
-0.13% Sweden
-0.19% Ireland
In other words for each 100 euros or pounds a German or British tax-payer makes, his states sends 37 or 24 cents or pennies back to the union... to keep things into perspective
IMHO, 1 trillion is way too few money, and there is a lot of waste because most conservative governments obstruct unification and modernization.