Fleecing Belgium: No one pays more to the EU than a Flemish citizen

From Gates of Vienna

A Fleming pays twice as much as a Walloon, triple as much as a Briton and five times more than a Frenchman.

It was already known that, from the 27 EU-member states, 15 are net recipients and 12 are net contributors. Belgium is a large net contributor. The Vlaams Belang group in the European Parliament, led by Frank Vanhecke, has now calculated how much each citizen of Flanders and Wallonia pays each year. The result is surprising: with 1780 million euro net, not a single EU-country pays more per head than Flanders: each Fleming pays 282 euro net per year.

This is more than the 272 euro each Dutchman pays per year. This is almost twice as much as a Walloon pays (164 euro). It is also double the amount of a German’s contribution (114 euro) and almost triple as much as that of a Briton. It is even five times more than the 53 euro a Frenchman pays and the 49 euro an Italian contributes.

The 2007 ‘hit parade’ of the largest EU-contributors looks like this:

1.		Flanders		1780 million euro divided by 6.3 million inhabitants = 282.6 euro/Fleming
2.		The Netherlands		4464.1 million euro divided by 16.4 million inhabitants = 272 euro/Dutchman
3.		Luxembourg		117 million euro divided by 476.187 million inhabitants = 245.7 euro/Luxembourger
4.		Wallonia		690.5 million euro divided by 4.2 million inhabitants = 164.5 euro/Walloon
5.		Denmark		817.4 million euro divided by 5.4 million inhabitants = 151.3 euro/Dane
6.		Sweden		1280.2 million euro divided by 9.1 million inhabitants = 140.6 euro/Swede
7.		Germany		9393.6 million euro divided by 82.3 million inhabitants = 114.1 euro/German
8.		Great Britain		6156.6 million euro divided by 60.8 million inhabitants = 101.2 euro/Briton
9.		Austria		639.7 million euro divided by 8.2 million inhabitants = 78 euro/Austrian
10.		Cyprus		49.2 million euro divided by 778.684 inhabitants = 62 euro/Cypriot
11.		France		3362.3 million euro divided by 63.3 million inhabitants = 53.1 euro/Frenchman
12.		Italy		2938.3 million euro divided by 59.1 million inhabitants = 49.7 euro/Italian
13.		Finland		229.1 million euro divided by 5.2 million inhabitants = 44 euro/Finn

- - - - - - - - -
Vlaams Belang advocates solidarity on a European scale, between rich and poor countries and regions, but thinks that Flanders and the Netherlands contribute far too much. Frank Vanhecke, former chairman and Vlaams Belang MEP, calls therefore on the Dutch parties to form a Flemish-Dutch front for an absolute limitation of the EU-contribution, namely 200 euro per head. Therefore, the European Union needs to save, for example by abolishing the traveling circus of Brussels-Strasbourg (200 million per year) as well as the scandalous severance payment of more than one million euro for European Commissionaires, and by cutting in the large number of redundant ‘agencies’.

Frank Vanhecke
Vlaams Belang Member of the European Parliament