(07-10-2019, 00:20)hibeejim21 Wrote: Ahhh. The old brexiter trope about contributions returns, even at this late stage in the game.

How many times?  The contribution must be weighed against the financial benefits of our access to the single market. In 2011, the UK government estimated this to be between £30 billion and £90 billion per year — so a return on investment of between 800% and 2370%. According to the CBI its worth about 3k to the average family in Britain.

Does that figure include the rebate ?  Does it also consider that the European Commission also allocates funding directly to UK organisations, often following a competitive process. In recent years these funds have been worth around £1 billion - £2 billion to the UK.

As with all other members of the EU the UK is also a major shareholder in the European Investment Bank (EIB). It is the bank of the EU and works closely with the other EU governing bodies, investing in projects across Europe and around the world. I'm sure we have invested about 10 billion in it.

So you don't have to look far to see where the money is going.

(07-10-2019, 02:23)spireitematt Wrote:

(07-10-2019, 00:20)hibeejim21 Wrote: Ahhh. The old brexiter trope about contributions returns, even at this late stage in the game.

How many times?  The contribution must be weighed against the financial benefits of our access to the single market. In 2011, the UK government estimated this to be between £30 billion and £90 billion per year — so a return on investment of between 800% and 2370%. According to the CBI its worth about 3k to the average family in Britain.

Does that figure include the rebate ?  Does it also consider that the European Commission also allocates funding directly to UK organisations, often following a competitive process. In recent years these funds have been worth around £1 billion - £2 billion to the UK.

As with all other members of the EU the UK is also a major shareholder in the European Investment Bank (EIB). It is the bank of the EU and works closely with the other EU governing bodies, investing in projects across Europe and around the world. I'm sure we have invested about 10 billion in it.

So you don't have to look far to see where the money is going.

It's not trope or tripe.

The rebate runs out in 2021-2022 even if we stay in as it will for Denmark and Netherlands. We pay £50 million a day, £350 million a week, £12 billion a year with the rebate but without the rebate it would be closer to around £16-£17 billion a year.

Getting 38p off the back of a £1 investment is bad business and bad economics and if any business traded like that in the real World then they would face going under. We are losing out on 62p for every £1 we send to the EU, where is the money going? 0762 is making assumptions on where the money is going and doesn't really know himself and you say that you don't have to look far to see where the money is going. Why don't the EU have a proper breakdown sheet of where the money goes? Why won't they be upfront about it? Something to hide possibly? None of us know where the money is going, the only people who know are the one's who work inside the EU, for all we know they could be creaming it off for themselves.

You hear the European Prime Ministers and Presidents in interviews on TV and they seem to be more worried about the EU losing the big hole to fill in the budget if we ever leave. Also as it stands the EU is 28 countries and they want to eventually expand it to 34-36 countries, the more countries which join the EU the bigger the contributions will be from France, Germany, UK (if we don't leave) and Italy.

Look at the Eurozone all signs are it's heading to another recession and crash and the ECB is trying to prop it up and bail out the Euro like it has done since the last Eurozone crisis.

(08-10-2019, 00:29)0762 Wrote: Well said Jim. I said in my previous thread that I was assuming much of the areas of financial activity within the EU mainly because I don't have access to what would be a huge list of projects, developments, investments etc throughout the EU. They are real and I know this because I have a close contact who works on EU affairs and business and one can indeed glean a lotta information on said EU outgoings and it is not as "non-transparent" as being suggested by Matt!!??? IMO that is being a tad disingenuous to suit a certain argument that is flawed TBF!! A lot of that kinda info can be acquired.

(08-10-2019, 01:23)St Charles Owl Wrote:

(08-10-2019, 00:29)0762 Wrote: Well said Jim. I said in my previous thread that I was assuming much of the areas of financial activity within the EU mainly because I don't have access to what would be a huge list of projects, developments, investments etc throughout the EU. They are real and I know this because I have a close contact who works on EU affairs and business and one can indeed glean a lotta information on said EU outgoings and it is not as "non-transparent" as being suggested by Matt!!??? IMO that is being a tad disingenuous to suit a certain argument that is flawed TBF!! A lot of that kinda info can be acquired.

While I have no doubt you are correct with the money that comes back to the UK from the EU for a variety of initiatives and while I accept they do publish this info some where, it still irks me that they stood back during the referendum that could see their 2nd biggest member leave without making it blatantly clear what benefits the UK get from the EU!!  I know its a fine line when “interfering” with the internal politics of a member but they should have made sure we were bombarded with this sort of info instead of letting Farage and BJ craft the daily message with their constant lies!!  That lack of self promoting or marketing or whatever it would be called is part of the problem with the EU and its one of the reasons why the counter argument can be difficult to refute.