IP/10/435

Brussels, 16 April 2010

2009 budget surplus under 2%

EU spending in 2009 corresponded closely to the adopted budget. The figures released on 15 April 2010 by the European Commission show a surplus of €2.25bn, amounting to 1.9% of the 2009 budget (€113.410bn). The surplus will be deducted from Member States contributions to the 2010 budget.

Janusz Lewandowski, EU Commissioner for Financial Programming and Budget, pointed out that “the low level of leftover funds in 2009 demonstrates that we direct EU funds efficiently where agreed needs lie and that every euro paid into the EU budget is used for the benefit of our citizens". He also underlined that "the EU budget surplus will be entered as revenue into the 2010 budget, therefore amounting to real savings for Member States in their contributions to the current year's EU budget.

Financial management reforms introduced over the past years have seen budget surpluses fall dramatically by 90% since 2001.

The 2009 surplus (1.98%) is slightly higher than in 2008 (1.5%). This is mainly due to fluctuations in exchange rate differences.

Evolution of EU budget surplus

Reductions of the Member States' contributions to the 2010 budget

Since EU rules set out that the EU budget must be balanced over the year, any leftover cash is shifted to the next year's budget. For Member States this means a reduction of their respective contribution to the following EU budget.

The table below provides the figures of the exact amount of reductions to the 2010 EU budget for each Member States, based on the 2009 surplus.

The amount is calculated on the basis of each country's Gross National Income (GNI).