What your money goes on

Financial Facts

  • It already costs us £48 million a day to be in the EU before the proposed increases by the European Commission

  • They haven't had their accounts signed off for 16 years

  • MEPs voted for an increase of 85% over 2010 in their entertainments budget for 2011

  • Baroness Ashton gets a remunertion package in the order of £328,000 per annum (including expenses and allowances), and a chauffeur and other staff. Her basic salary is more than Obama's or Hilary Clinton's

  • Funding for operating costs of the EEAS, (European External Action Service) under the control of Lady Ashton, the EU foreign Minister, has been set at £404 million for 2011.

  • By 2013 the EU's new foreign policy arm will have a total budget of £8 billion – nearly four times the £2.2 billion spent on running the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

  • In April 2011 MEPs turned down the chance to cut their allowances and perks. All UK MEPs except UKIP voted against these changes.

  • We still have three seats of the EU: Luxembourg, Brussels and Strasbourg. Luxembourg is set to be refurbished at the cost of hundreds of millions of euro.

  • The European Parliament spent €830,000 replacing filing cabinets to transport documents during the seven hour trek from Brussels to Strasbourg, because the old ones tended to fall over and injure the removal men.

  • The two-seat European Parliament itself cost an estimated €205 million in 2006 before more MEPs and accession and the rise in fuel.

  • The ECHR insisting we give prisoners the votes and don't keep paedophiles on a list forever is essential with our EU membership. This could lead to prisoners claiming compensation against the British tax payer

  • They say they need it to expand their work programme but these are on issues we've never been given a chance to approve: we keep on saying we want power returned!


For more euro myths and the truth behind them visit The UKIP website