Ferdinando Giugliano, Columnist

The EU Can Do a Lot More With Its Money

A document by Italy and Germany puts a welcome new emphasis on "public goods."

February 27, 2018 at 6:00 AM UTC

Ferdinando Giugliano is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He was previously a member of the editorial board of the Financial Times.

Time for a rethink of EU spending.
Photographer: Remy Gabalda/AFP/Getty Images

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For all the talk of the costs that "Brexit" will impose on Britain, the U.K.'s withdrawal from the European Union will not be painless for the rest of the bloc either. One immediate problem will be how to fill the gap in the EU budget resulting from Britain's departure.

The U.K. is a net contributor to the EU budget. Even taking into account the money London gets back from Brussels in the form of research grants or farm support, for example, the EU will fall around 10 billion euros ($12.3 billion) short each year.