Between 2008 and 2017, Germany raised around € 138 billion in the EU budget and in financial aid for crisis countries. This is evident from a still unpublished study by the Center for European Policy (CEP) on redistribution within the EU.
The sum for Germany is made up of 119 billion euros redistribution by the EU budget and another just under 19 billion euros through grants through the Eurorettungsfonds.
This makes the Federal Republic of Germany by far the largest payer, far ahead of France, which contributed just under € 80 billion to the EU budget and to its crisis policy during this period. The biggest beneficiaries were Greece with 114 billion euros and Poland with 104 billion euros.
While the Poles are benefiting above all from redistribution through the EU budget, in Greece, above all, financial assistance during the euro crisis has an impact. One of the advantages for the country is that the Greek government was able to save a significant amount of interest costs because of its low-cost loans. In the process, the researchers compared the cost of interest that Greece would have had to pay on market conditions with those that actually accrued.
Because the Greek government was allowed to take drastically reduced loans from the European bailouts, the difference was correspondingly large. The CEP authors see this as transfer-effective assistance.
Conversely, Germany and other large states such as France and Italy were financially burdened by this bill by lending to Greece on preferential terms.
Even with the annual per capita burden of 169 euros, the Germans occupy a peak, according to the study. Only Swedes and Dutch made with more than 170 euros more.
Among the winners of the redistribution, Greece is at the top - with 1049 euros per capita annually. For the Poles, this value was 273 euros.
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