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Louis Dor
Jun 09, 2016
Yep, it's another dose of EU numbers. We're sure this won't be controversial.
This week, Tory MP Sarah Wollaston swapped sides from Leave to Remain, saying she did not feel comfortable being part of a campaign which said the UK paid £350m a week to the EU.
The figure has been proved incorrect as it does not take into account Britain's rebate, negotiated in 1984 by Margaret Thatcher.
The £350m a week figure came from Treasury figures which showed the UK was estimated to pay 17.78bn in gross in 2015, or £342m a week.
However, the rebate is deducted before any payment is made, so it is incorrect to say we paid £350m a week - the real figure was £248m a week (and this is still before 4.4bn annually in public sector receipts, payments to the private sector and common market benefits).
Using data from the European Commission we've averaged the yearly net contribution to the EU for each country.
In short, Germany, the UK and France have paid the most into the EU.
When divided per capita, using eurostat population averages for the same time period, it appears Belgium, Luxembourg and Sweden are worse off - at least according to the calculations by the Danish government.
As the country that pays the third most into the EU per capita, yearly, no wonder Denmark is a bit miffed.
More:This map shows which countries most want Britain to stay in the EU
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