EU budget and the UK's contribution

27.10.2014

Question for written answer P-008414-14
to the Commission
Rule 130
Molly Scott Cato (Verts/ALE)

The UK Government is being told to pay an extra EUR 2.1 billion towards the EU budget by 1 December 2014.

1. Is the UK budget contribution for this year based on the new measure of GDP for the UK that includes informal and illegal sectors?

2. Does the Commission consider it legitimate to revise Member States’ budget contributions retrospectively using a newly adopted measure of economic activity, has this been done for the UK, and does the revision date back to 2002 or 1995 in the case of the UK?

3. Does the Commission consider it legitimate to include, for the purposes of calculating Member States’ contributions, sectors of the economy on which the national government cannot levy taxes, since they are either informal or illegal?