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After lavish praise for her negotiating skills, Merkel is now under fire
The annual check
Germany, already the European Union's biggest net-contributor before
the newest deal, sends to finance the European Union grew by another 2
billion euros ($2.4 billion) as part of the delicate budget deal
Chancellor Merkel brokered last week.
"We will have to pay
less than we had expected, but we will pay more than in the past," the
government's deputy spokesman Thomas Steg said, confirming a report in
the Berliner Zeitung daily.
The paper said that
from 2007 Germany's net contribution -- the difference between the
money paid into the EU pot and the money received in grants and
payments from Brussels --
would rise to 10.4 billion euros, equivalent to a rise of around two billion euros a year.
Steg told a press
conference that the figure of two billion euros was essentially
correct, but said it was the "current state" of the estimates and not a
"calculation" nor
the official figure.
The extra money,
which Steg said the government was "willing to pay for the historic
unification of Europe," will be headed mainly to the 10 new and poorer
EU member states. Eastern Germany will also see less benefit from EU
money in the form of structural aid.
"A fly in the soup"
