LETTER: Countries do not pay into budget

Oh dear! David Daniels CBE owes me an apology! Had he carried out the most basic homework by consulting the official EU, EFTA-EEA, Switzerland websites (rather than remain propaganda) he would find my statement that non-EEA Switzerland and Norway do not pay into the 28-nation EU Budget is factually correct (21/10/16).

These official websites make very clear that Switzerland and Norway do not pay into the distinct 28-nation ‘EU Budget’ but - importantly - their contributions are received by the EU ‘in addition to’ that budget primarily to fund EU programmes, as I have long explained.

They (and other non-EEA contributors) thus receive EU funds in return. Norway pays an equivalent to the EU for those specific EU-benefits they ‘enjoy’ as members of the EEA: their annual EU payment is roughly Britain’s gross weekly liability to the EU Budget.

Norway also voluntarily funds poorer EEA states.

If these elementary, well-proven facts and subtle semantics are still too complicated for remoaners to comprehend, is it any wonder they lost?!

As to his lengthy economic lecture (some of which I agree), yo-yoing comparative economic indices such as ‘industrial output per man-hour’ are of academic interest only to economists and desperate politicians. Indeed, ask two credible economists the same question and you’ll get three different, ever-changing, credible but opposing answers.

Perhaps David will now explain why Britain was the 4th largest economy pre-EEC; plunged to 7th under the EEC and regained 5th once we left the ERM? Why are British companies the largest foreign investors in America, Germany and parts of Africa?

And why did food prices rise after we joined the tariff-free EEC, yet New Zealand lamb is cheaper (even with EU CAP import duties) than CAP-funded British lamb? Mint sauce anyone?

Barry M Jones

Bixley Lane

Beckley

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