‘Cough up, Angela!’ EU budget chief says GERMANY will have to cover Brexit black hole
Gunther Oettinger said eurocrats need even more money to tackle growing crises like migration and the fight against terror at a time when the EU is losing its third largest net contributor.
He warned that the massive loss of cash set to be unleashed by Brexit cannot be offset by cuts to the ballooning Brussels budget and will have to be made up by the bloc’s richer countries instead.
Just 10 of the EU’s 28 nations put more money into the project than they get out and it is extremely heavily reliant on just three - Britain, France and Germany - to keep going.
France has endure years of economic stagnation which have prompted growing euroscepticism and the looming threat of Marine Le Pen, leaving Berlin in the firing line once more to pick up the tab.
But with Germany already facing a mammoth bill for housing over a million refugees, which other European nations have refused to take in, the appetite to stump up even more cash for Brussels is limited.
On top of that many German taxpayers feel that they have been unfairly required to bankroll successive bailouts of Greece and resent what they see as their hard earned money being squandered in the ‘lazy’ south.
Officials in Berlin have already stressed they will not up their mammoth contribution, which amounts to a whopping 20 per cent of the entire EU budget, because of Brexit.
In October defiant Deputy Finance Minister Jens Spahn insisted: "If Britain's contribution falls away, the EU budget will shrink.
"There is certainly no automatic mechanism that (would make) Germany and other net contributors increase their contribution
The German national was recently controversially appointed EU budget commissioner despite being embroiled in a string of scandals over racially insensitive comments and Russian lobbying.
Britain’s budget contribution is currently around £8.5bn a year but, with Theresa May having indicated she will pull the UK out of the single market, Brussels is set to lose that cash in 2019.
He warned that the massive loss of cash set to be unleashed by Brexit cannot be offset by cuts to the ballooning Brussels budget and will have to be made up by the bloc’s richer countries instead.
Just 10 of the EU’s 28 nations put more money into the project than they get out and it is extremely heavily reliant on just three - Britain, France and Germany - to keep going.
France has endure years of economic stagnation which have prompted growing euroscepticism and the looming threat of Marine Le Pen, leaving Berlin in the firing line once more to pick up the tab.
But with Germany already facing a mammoth bill for housing over a million refugees, which other European nations have refused to take in, the appetite to stump up even more cash for Brussels is limited.
On top of that many German taxpayers feel that they have been unfairly required to bankroll successive bailouts of Greece and resent what they see as their hard earned money being squandered in the ‘lazy’ south.
Officials in Berlin have already stressed they will not up their mammoth contribution, which amounts to a whopping 20 per cent of the entire EU budget, because of Brexit.
In October defiant Deputy Finance Minister Jens Spahn insisted: "If Britain's contribution falls away, the EU budget will shrink.
"There is certainly no automatic mechanism that (would make) Germany and other net contributors increase their contribution
The German national was recently controversially appointed EU budget commissioner despite being embroiled in a string of scandals over racially insensitive comments and Russian lobbying.
Britain’s budget contribution is currently around £8.5bn a year but, with Theresa May having indicated she will pull the UK out of the single market, Brussels is set to lose that cash in 2019.
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