Some charges against the EU don’t stack up

Fiction: EU membership harms the UK workforce.

Fact: EU membership gives us a better chance of getting a decent job. Both the Tory-Lib Dem coalition and the previous Labour government claimed that three to four million jobs are linked to trade with other EU countries (helped by, but not necessarily dependent on EU membership), with then-Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, saying in 2014: “Indeed, the latest Treasury analysis shows that 3.3 million British jobs are connected to Britain’s place in Europe.”[1]

Fiction: The EU doesn’t protect the environment.

Fact: In addition to needing concerted international efforts to tackle climate change, we benefit from hundreds of European directives, regulations and decisions protecting people and environment, and making our beaches and air cleaner and our wildlife safer.

Fiction: UK citizens do not benefit from the freedom of movement as much as citizens of other EU nations.

Fact: The UK had the highest net outflow of domestic nationals in the EU between 2000 and 2007, and in 2013, only Poland had a higher net outflow of domestic nationals. The government estimates that roughly 1.2 million UK nationals live in other EU countries, while 3.0 million EU migrants live in the UK.[2] Moreover, at least 30,000 Britons living in the EU are claiming unemployment benefits, according to the Guardian, drawing much more in benefits and allowances from wealthy EU countries such as Ireland, Germany and France than their nationals claim in the UK.[3] EU migrants to the UK also contributed 34 per cent more in taxes than they received in benefits between 2001 and 2011, according to research from University College London.[4]

Fiction: Most of UK law comes from the EU.

Fact: According to the House of Commons Library, over the past 20 years, 1.4 per cent of Acts of Parliament and 12.9 per cent of implementing measures in the UK relate to the EU. Overall, an average of 13.2 per cent of UK instruments are EU-related.[5]

Fiction: It would be impossible to reform the EU to make it more democratic.

Fact: While the EU can be legitimately criticised for suffering a ‘democratic deficit’, this is changing. The democratically-elected European Parliament is becoming stronger, with the co-decision procedure becoming the norm since the Lisbon Treaty was implemented in 2009. The European Citizens’ Initiative, introduced under the same treaty, allows one million EU citizens from at least seven member states to ask the commission to consider a legislative proposal (although a worrying proportion of initiatives have been rejected to date). Only by staying in the EU can we reform its institutions to further enhance its democratic credentials.

Fiction: The EU bureaucracy is massive.

Fact: Just 32,999 people are employed by the EU, according to its 2016 figures, roughly the same number of people employed by Leeds City Council (as of 2011).[6]

Fiction: The UK’s membership of the EU costs a fortune (with Nigel Farage claiming it costs £55 million a day to be a member).

Fact: For the seven-year budget cycle of 2007- 2013, the UK’s average net contribution was £3.8 billion a year, which works out at just under £1.5 million a day and is less than 0.4 per cent of our gross national income, according to European Commission figures.[7] Moreover, the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills estimated in 2011 that the European single market ‘may be responsible for income gains in the UK between two per cent and six per cent, that is between £1,100 and £3,300 a year per British household’.[8] A literature review by the CBI, moreover, found that the net benefit of EU membership to the UK could be in the region of four to five per cent of GDP, between £62 billion and £78 billion a year.[9]

Fiction: Norway and Switzerland benefit from the European single market without having to pay for it.

Fact: Industries from both countries still have to follow EU rules to maintain access to the single market, and the countries make significant monetary contributions to the EU. As non-members, however, they have no say in creating the rules. Indeed, Norway’s minister for the European Economic Area and EU Affairs, Vidar Helgesen, has explicitly urged the UK
to remain in the EU, noting that, while Norway implements three quarters of EU legislation and makes financial contributions to the EU “on par with comparable EU member states”, “What really sets Norway apart is that we don’t have the right to vote in Europe...I have a hard time seeing the UK, with your global ambition, dedication and contributions, being comfortable with such an arrangement.”[10]

References

1. ‘In brief: UK-EU economic relations’, available at: www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN06091.pdf
2. ‘Migration Statistics – Parliament’, available at: www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/sn06077.pdf
3. ‘Revealed: thousands of Britons on benefits across EU’, available at:http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/19/-sp-thousands-britons-cla...
4. ‘The Fiscal Effects of Immigration to the UK’, available at: http://www.cream-migration.org/publ_uploads/CDP_22_13.pdf
5. ‘EU obligations: UK implementing legislation since 1993’, available at:www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN07092.pdf
6. European Commission’s 2016 ‘HR Key Figures: Staff Members’, available at:http://ec.europa.eu/civil_service/docs/hr_key_figures_2016.pdf
7. EU budget figures available at: http://ec.europa.eu/budget/figures/interactive/index_en.cfm
8. ‘The UK and the single market’, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/.../11-719-uk-and-single-market.pdf
9. CBI’s ‘Factsheet 2 - Benefits of EU membership outweigh costs’, available at:http://news.cbi.org.uk/campaigns/our-global-future/factsheets/factsheet-...
10. Vidar Helgesen’s speech available at:http://www.britishinfluence.org/press_release_norway_is_not_the_way_for_