Six months before the European elections, the true or false sifts through the more or less founded beliefs surrounding the European Union. The True or False Unit focuses in particular on this recurring accusation: does Europe really cost France more than it brings in?
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Europe costs us too much. This is a recurring accusation, relayed in particular by elected officials from the National Rally. One figure has emerged regularly for several years: Europe would cost us around 10 billion euros per year.
Ten billion: that’s false.
If we look at the budgetary gaps, that is to say the financial effort of the State in each area, France has planned to spend 24.5 billion euros in 2023 as its contribution to the budget of the EU. Previously, the French envelope was around 20 billion per year, which overall makes France the second or third largest contributor to the EU depending on the year. Except that we don’t just give money. We also receive some. Let’s take the last known year, 2020. That year, France received 15.8 billion euros from the European Union while it spent 21. Europe therefore does not cost us 10 billion euros per year, but rather around 5 to 6 billion depending on the year, or almost twice less than what the RN elected officials put forward. In 2020, France was even the second biggest beneficiary of European money behind Poland, in particular because our country receives a huge amount of money via the CAP, the European agricultural aid policy.
A calculation that has its limits
On paper, France therefore actually gives more money than it receives. This is called a net contributor to the EU budget. However, this calculation does not take into account the benefits of membership of the European Union. The Commission recalls that membership of the EU allows French companies to access the national markets of all EU countries, i.e. nearly 400 million consumers.
