Different facilities for regional policy
It mainly draws funds through the different facilities for regional policy, with EUR
82 bn (22% of total) but also is the fifth largest destination for agricultural funds
(EUR 32 bn).
After Poland, absolute spending from structural and investment
funds is highest in the EU’s largest Western European countries – France,
Spain, Italy and Germany. However, the importance of EU funding relative to the
size of members’ economies is substantially higher in Central-Eastern Europe.
As a share of 2016 GDP, annual EU preallocated gross funds are highest in
Bulgaria (4.7%), Lithuania (4.6%) and Hungary (4.5%), while in Western Europe
they go as low as 0.1% in Luxembourg and 0.2% in the UK, Belgium and the
Netherlands.
France has traditionally been the strongest recipient under the headings of
agricultural policy, with EUR 63 bn (or 16% of all agricultural spending)
preallocated in the 2014-2020 financial framework. It is therefore also quite
remarkable that French President Macron over the last months repeatedly
presented himself open to reforms of the common agricultural policy (CAP) that
could confront him with strong headwinds domestically.
EU Forecast
euf:ba18h:174/nws-01