BREXIT: France receives nearly THREE times more EU funding than UK
The EU continues to dish out billions more to France than the UK for farming, despite it being one of the wealthiest and prosperous nations in the bloc, new figures reveal.
Analysis from pro-Brexit group Facts4EU has shown the major gulf within the bloc's funding for nations on funding, with France receiving around two-and-a-half-times as much money from Brussels than the UK for farming. France, which is the bloc's second richest economy, has been protective over the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which Facts4EU argues is because it continues to be the biggest beneficiary of the subsidies handed out for farming. Across the past 10 years, the bloc has given around 40 percent of its budget to CAP projects, and according to European Commission data released last month, in 2019 this worked out at around €54.5billion (£48.8billion).
Of that, France - which Facts4EU claims has a slightly smaller economy than the UK, received €9.4billion (£8.4billion), while Britain collected just €3.9 billion (£3.4billion).
When assessed across the budget in 2019, this equates to around one-sixth of the money set aside - despite there being 27 EU member states.
Following its analysis, the website explained: "By contrast, for years we have seen, heard and read Remainer-Rejoiner politicians and commentators in the UK on a daily basis, talking about what they think the EU is and does.
"They present a happy valley where ‘all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds’, as the French philosopher Voltaire had it.
Other nations ahead of the UK in terms of funding, include Spain, Germany and Poland.
In a 2017 report the National Farmers' Union of England and Wales found that agriculture contributed around £24billion of revenues and around £8.5billion of Gross Value Added to the UK economy in 2015.
It added that the industry at the time provided around 475,000 jobs, while supporting an additional 30,000 jobs through procurement activity.