EU membership costs every Briton £873 a year

An analysis of the price of EU membership has concluded combined direct and indirect costs will reach close to £100,000 a minute by next year.

The report, by the right-wing Bruges Group think-tank, is an attempt to conduct the cost-benefit analysis demanded by many MPs and peers since Britain joined the then European Economic Community in 1973.

Successive governments have refused to carry out such a study, arguing the benefits of membership are self-evident.

But the research published today concludes Britain has given nearly £200 billion to the EU since we joined and in 2007, British taxpayers will be forced to contribute £14.2 billion for membership.

That works out at a cost of £873 per year for every man, woman and child, it says.

Overall, the EU is costing the British economy £50.6 billion this year in both direct and indirect costs and by 2007 this will rise to £52.4 billion.

That means that by 2007 the cost will rise to nearly £100,000 per minute, the Bruges Group says.

United Kingdom Independence Party MEP Gerard Batten, author of the pamphlet, said: 'The question should not be whether we can afford to leave but how can we afford to stay in.'

Robert Oulds, director of the Bruges Group, which counts former Prime Minister Lady Thatcher as its honorary president, said: 'The cost per minute is an enormous sum. Over the course of a year the figure is shocking.

'To put it into perspective, just £1 billion will pay for 222,000 hip replacements, or 46,893 nurses, or 38,782 teachers, or 34,585 police officers.

'Imagine what we could do in Britain with the £50.6 billion that the EU costs us each year.'
The pamphlet admitted calculating the cost of EU membership was 'not easy', but insisted 'conservative estimates' had been made where exact costs were not known.

Britain's direct annual contribution to the EU budget will be £4.7 billion and will rise year on year to 2013, it said.

However, some of the money we pay to the overseas aid budget is not included in the normal budget figures.

The Common Agricultural Policy is identified as a big indirect cost of membership. The CAP ensures that the French, who benefit most from lavish subsidies to their farmers, get back 98 per cent of their total contributions to the EU budget.

The CAP, the report says, costs a British family of four an additional £20 on their weekly food bill - or £1,000 per year. About half of this is made up of higher taxes in order to subsidise farmers, and half through higher food bills compared to what we would pay for the same food on the world market.

The Common Fisheries Policy, meanwhile, which has allowed EU fleets to ravage Britain's formerly fertile fishing grounds, costs at least £1 billion a year to Britain in lost jobs and reduced catches.

The tide of regulations from the EU is also costing business dear, the report says.

It is now estimated that 70 per cent of Britain's new laws now emanate from Brussels, and complying with them al has a direct effect and cost for government, private organisations and business. Costs are also passed on to the consumer.

Holland has estimated that the cost of EU over-regulation is about two per cent of its national income. On the same basis, the cost to Britain is £20 billion a year.