Germany is once again the largest contributor to the EU.

The gap between the German contribution to the EU budget and the returns from the various EU funds rose to 15.5 billion euros in the 2020 budget year - a record amount.

This makes Germany by far the largest contributor, ahead of Great Britain, which made another substantial contribution of 10.2 billion euros in 2020 before it finally left the EU internal market at the turn of the year. 

The main contributors also include France and - this is often overlooked in Germany - Italy. If you put the contribution in relation to economic output, with the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Austria, completely different countries come to the fore together with Germany - precisely the countries that ultimately unsuccessfully opposed the higher multi-year EU budget last year and defended the Corona development fund totaling 1.8 trillion euros.  

All of this is ultimately unsurprising. The numbers may be slightly higher than in previous years. But the picture is the same year after year. The contributions depend largely on the economic strength of the states and Germany is economically the strongest state in the EU. It is also clear that the German contribution will continue to increase. This is not least due to the fact that the British will no longer be a major contributor in the future. In the negotiations on the multi-annual EU budget from 2021 to 2027, the federal government has implemented a discount of around 3.7 billion euros per year. Nevertheless, the net contribution - depending on the economic development - is likely to rise to around 20 billion euros.  

Is that good or bad?

This is an excellent point to argue about.

Ultimately, the amount of the contribution to the EU only shows how dearly the EU is paying the member states.

Whether the individual comes to the conclusion that the EU is paying “quite dearly” or that the contribution is just “quite and dearly” cannot be determined from the difference between contributions and returns from the EU pots.

The European Commission always argues, not entirely wrong, that this staring at the "Juste retour" as it is called in EU parlance, i.e. an appropriate return of EU funds into one's own country, obscures the view of the advantages that each state has withdraws from membership in the EU.

Silence provides ammunition for the skeptics

This is by no means just the much-cited peace dividend. For an exporting nation like Germany, these are the advantages that it derives from smooth trade in the EU internal market. German companies also benefit directly from EU aid for countries like Poland, as it gives them orders that they would otherwise not have received. All of this can be booked on the credit side and contrasted with the debit side of the EU contributions. Of course, one can also argue that an EU internal market would also be possible without generous transfers of money between the member states via the detour of the EU budget. Just as one can doubt that peace in Europe would be endangered if Germany paid less into the EU.

In order to argue, however, the facts have to be on the table - and that is exactly where the real scandal lies. The European Commission no longer publishes the contribution figures. After initially abolishing the public presentation of the annual report a few years ago and only posting the figures clandestinely on the Internet during the summer slump, it has not even done that this year. If you want to know how high the contributions of the individual states are, you have to do the math yourself.  

The Commission justifies this by saying that the net contributions are being misused by Eurosceptics to stir up a mood against the EU.

Apparently she has no confidence that her arguments are weighty enough to get through.

The big mistake in reasoning is that by keeping the figures quiet, the Commission is even more likely to deliver ammunition to the skeptics.

After all, why should she hide something if it wasn't problematic?

In addition, the justified criticism of high EU spending and contributions is indirectly equated with EU skepticism.

Billions for Poland and Hungary

How sensitive it is to keep the contribution flows silent is also shown by the discussion about how to deal with Poland and Hungary, who are criticized for serious violations of the rule of law and other fundamental values ​​of the EU.

Both countries are among the main beneficiaries of the EU budget.

Poland recently received 13.2 billion euros and Hungary 4.8 billion euros more money from Brussels than it paid in.

This corresponds to no less than 2.6 and 3.6 percent of the respective economic output. 

In this case, the figures do not show how expensive, but what value the EU viewed from a purely financial perspective - and thus also where and how you can actually hurt them if they move further away from the EU's values.