§ Mr. Knoxasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish in theOfficial Reporta table showing, in terms of sterling converted at the appropriate exchange rate for each member State of the EEC, the amount of money paid into EEC funds and the amount received from EEC funds in 1977.
§ Mr. Joel Barnett:Only the EEC Commission can produce complete figures of all member States' net budgetary transfers for past years, but so far they have declined to publish them. We understand that they are now considering the possibility of publishing statistics for 1976 247W and 1977, and we hope that they will decide to do so.
Contributions by each member State to the 1977 Community budget were as follows:
£ million Belgium … … 413 .9 Denmark … … 138 .1 Germany … … 1,914 .9 France … … 1,076 .4 Ireland … … 20 .7 Italy … … 555.2 Luxembourg … … 9 .5 Netherlands … … 593 .2 United Kingdom … … 657 .4 TOTAL 5,379 .3 Only limited information, confined to particular sectors, is available to us in respect of receipts by all member States. The totals for receipts in the Community's financial year 1977—not directly comparable with the above contribution figures—(a) from the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund, (b) for the supply of food aid, (c) from the European Regional Development Fund, (d) from Friuli aid to Italy, and (e) for the 10 per cent. reimbursement for the cost of collection of own resources are as follows:
£ million Belgium … … 401 .7 Denmark … … 470 .2 Germany … … 1,360 .8 France … … 1,167 .4 Ireland … … 265 .2 Italy … … 529 .9 Luxembourg … … 8 .9 Netherlands … … 825 .7 United Kingdom … … 288 .9 Total 5,318 .7 Receipts by member States from the Social Fund have been excluded as the only information available relates to commitments to member States rather than actual payments.
Conversions into sterling have been made on the basis of average annual exchange rates applied to member States' contributions and receipts expressed in national currencies.
As shown in the Government's Green Paper on the European monetary system (Cmnd. 7405), published on 24th November, the United Kingdom's gross contributions to the Community budget were £737 million, and estimated public sector receipts from the budget were £368 million, in calendar year 1977.