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When it comes to Britain leaving the European Union, there are two extreme scenarios for the budget, EU budget commissioner Günther Oettinger told German tabloid Bild am Sonntag.
“If the [EU] budget were to remain the same, others would have to help out. If we cut the budget by the volume of Britain’s share, then not,” said Mr. Oettinger, a conservative lawmaker from Germany’s center-right Christian Democrats who took over the new post at the bloc’s purse strings at the start of the year.
By his reckoning, a third option, less extreme than the other two, could cost Germany €1 billion, or $1.06 billion. Mr. Oettinger called this “reasonable” considering the benefits of the single market for the European and German economies. [...]
Mr. Oettinger also said he opposed the idea of an EU tax, saying, “We do not want our own tax” – and certainly not on top of the EU budget source of income. “We want to develop the current system by which each member state transfers a certain percentage of the gross national income to us.”
According to Mr. Oettinger, Britain recently paid an average of €8 billion a year into the EU budget. [...]
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