The Economic Costs Of Healing the 20th Century Destruction And Division Of Europe

[British Prime Minister] Tony Blair defended the deal over the European Union budget by telling the House of Commons on Monday that if there had not been extra money for the [ten] newer member states in the East it would have been a "betrayal of everything Britain has rightly stood for".

Despite claims by David Cameron, the new Tory leader, that Mr Blair had failed in all of his objectives in the negotiations, the prime minister sought to put the deal in the wider context of Europe’s development.

“The fact is that if we support and indeed drive through a policy of ending the postwar division of Europe, we have to be ready to accept our fair share of the cost of that policy,” he said.

The deal is likely to leave the UK up to £2bn [$3.54 billion] worse off each year by the end of this decade." ...

James Blitz, Political Editor and FT reporters "Blair fights off backlash over EU rebate deal" Financial Times Updated December 19, 2005.

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The Economist Magazine (December 17, 2005) estimates the cost of the E.U.- eastward expansion to include ten new E.U. nations (toward, but for now excluding, Croatia, the Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, and Ukraine) at 14 billion Euros ($16.8 billion) over the 2007-2013 E.U. budget-cycle years. Of that amount, Germany will contribute 2 billion Euros ($2.4 billion), while Britain will contribute 1.2 billion Euros ($1.44 billion).











Main Synagogue, Minsk, Russia (Belarus), 1917.

Image credit: Old, historic postcard.