EU/TURKEY: NEW REPORT SAYS ACCESSION COULD COST UP TO EURO 16 BILLION IN STRUCTURAL FUNDS

摘要

A new academic report commissioned by the Dutch Agriculture Ministry suggests that Turkish membership could cost the European Union up to Euro 16 billion a year in structural funding. The report, "Turkey in the European Union", released on Decembers,was written by researchers at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. It analyses the impact of Turkish membership in the field of agriculture, and suggests that the direct burden on the EU farm budget may be less than anticipated, but that the cost could be very high in terms of Structural Funds. Assuming that Turkey made an annual contribution to the EU Budget of Euro 5.4 billion, the report concludes that its net receipts would total between Euro 10.9 and 18 billion a year - the biggest chunk of which would come from the Structural Funds, somewhere between Euro 9.5 billion and 16.6 billion.