Each resident of the Netherlands contributed €266.70 towards the European Union in 2008, the highest individual contribution in the EU, according to calculations by the anti-Islam party PVV.
The PVV, which has four European MPs and campaigned to have the EU parliament abolished, bases its claims on the most recent EU accounts.
The net Dutch contribution amounted to €4.4bn, following the deduction of subsidies and grants, MEP Daniël van der Stoep says in Thursday’s Telegraaf. ‘That is an incomprehensible amount of money,’ Van der Stoep told the paper. ‘And that is even after the €1bn discount we have been getting since 2007.’
According to the PVV’s calculations, Sweden is the second biggest net payer, with a contribution of €194 per head of the population, followed by Denmark (€135) and Germany (€133). Nineteen of the 27 EU countries were net beneficiaries.
The European Commission does not publish its own calculations on net contributions, the paper states.
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