The information on the Court of Audit’s EU webpages has been updated. It can now be seen that on balance the Netherlands paid €6.9 billion to the European Union in 2021.
It contributed more than €9.5 billion and received over €2.6 billion from Brussels in the form of grants. The net payment for 2021 was equal to 0.82% of the country’s gross national income (GNI). This is fractionally higher than in 2020 and distinctly more than in the years before then. The European Commission applies a different calculation method and puts the net payment for 2021 at €4.1 billion (0.48% of GNI). The EU budget is financed for 92% by contributions from the 27 member states. A third of the member states contribute more to the budget than they receive from the EU. EU expenditure in 2021 totalled €227 billion. Some 20% of the expenditure related to the member states’ recovery and resilience plans (also known as the RRF), a response to the COVID-19 pandemic and a significant part of Next Generation EU.