Croatia withdrawing more than it is contributing to the EU.
In 2014, Croatia withdrew 173.6 million euros more from the EU budget than it paid into it, according to a financial report by the European Commission published on its website. That is significantly higher than in 2013, when Croatia had a surplus of 49.6 million euros, reports Jutarnji List on August 21, 2015.
According to the European Commission financial report, last year Croatia withdrew from the EU budget a total of 584.3 million euros, while in 2013 it withdrew 290 million euros. Looking at the net inflows from the EU budget among member states, Croatia is similar to Malta, which last year withdrew 179.4 million euros more than it paid in. Croatian net inflow from the EU budget is greater than the inflows of Ireland (38.8 million euros), Luxembourg (80.1 million euros) and Cyprus (114.8 million euros).
Of the 28 EU member states, there were ten member states which were net donors to the EU budget last year. The biggest negative difference was recorded by Germany – 15.5 billion euros. The biggest positive difference last year was achieved by Poland – 13.75 billion euros.
Deputy Prime Minister Branko Grčić, who is in charge of coordinating the use of European structural and investment funds, said that this is another good news for Croatia and its government. “This has confirmed our forecasts that the final calculation of all payments into and from the EU budget will show a greater net effect than the previously mentioned 87 million euros. More importantly, these funds are being quickly spent on projects that this government initiated, and so in the first six months of this year, 2.8 billion kuna was paid out, compared to 1.1 billion kuna last year. This suggests that the EU sources are becoming increasingly important for financing investments with visible effects on the Croatian economy”, said Grčić for Hina.
The EU budget for 2014 was planned in the amount of 142 billion euros, representing 1.05 percent of EU gross national income. That was the first time in the history of the EU that a budget is lower than the year before.
