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The EU budget and UK contribution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Iain Begg
Iain Begg*
Affiliation:
European Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science
*
E-mail: IAIN.Begg@lse.ac.uk
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Abstract

The European Union budget is small and fulfils only a limited range of functions, yet it provokes regular disputes among the Member States and institutions of the Union. This paper describes the structure of the budget and shows that standard theories, such as fiscal federalism, are not well-suited to analysing how the EU budget operates or the political economy behind it. The paper then looks at how much the UK contributes towards the EU budget and explains why some of the claims made about it in the public discourse are inaccurate.

Keywords

European Union budgetfiscal federalismUK referendum on EUEU cohesion policycommon agricultural policyown resourcesF55H11H61
Type
Research Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 236 , May 2016 , pp. 39 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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