Where are we heading with Europe? Let's examine some main topics that illustrate Europe's future direction.

EU Budget Development
The European budget comprises roughly 130,000 Million Euros yearly. The ongoing (2013) budget process in terms of 'net contributions' (= Benefits -Contribution) per country is not transparent. Only the figures until 2011 are available.

Let's take a look a the net contribution development from the start of Europe (2000) until the last available data in 2011. Countries that (net) receive money are 'placed above the x-axis, countries that (net) have to pay money are placed below the x-axis.


Clear is that the amount of money that is transferred from the North&West European countries to the South&East European countries is growing fast from around 15,000 Million Euro in 2000 to around 34,000 Million Euro in 2011.

In a stable Europe the net contributions should decline and vary. However, the opposite is the case!

Who Pays, Who Receives?
It's interesting to look at which countries in Europe are financing other countries.

Take a look at the 2011 transfer of money between all European countries. To create a clear overview, the numbers are rounded in Millions. As a consequence some rows or columns  might not exactly sum up to their total.


To illustrate this table:

• In 2011 Poland received 10,975 Million Euro, of which The Netherlands payed 711 Million Euro of the total of 2,214 Million Euro The Netherlands (net) payed
• Germany payed a net total of 9,003 Million Euros, of which 1,217 Million euro was payed to Greece

It really gets frightening when we analyse the total amount of money transferred between 2000 and 2011:


This table tells us inter alia:

• Over the period 2000-2011 a total amount of 253,119 Million Euro was transferred from North&West to South&East Europe. The end of this imbalanced flow of money is not yest in sight. The future looks dark, due to the current crises in Greece and Cyprus, as well as the worrying situation in Spain and Portugal. 
• Spain has already received 63,563 Million Euro of which 22,115 Million Euro was payed by Germany.
• Germany pay 88,067 Million Euro to support other structural failing European countries, and will continue to do so...... 

Declining Support
On top of the bad financial perspective as presented above, PEW Research recently published, the next survey results:


Only in Germany a small majority still 'believes' in Europe... Other European countries have given up on Europe. Overall, the support for an 'Integral Europe' is declining...

Let's end with the trust European countries have in each other. I leave the trivial conclusions up to the intelligent readers of this blog.. Please don't laugh, while examining the outcomes.


Conclusion
Europe..., how long will it last....???????

 Sources/Links
- Spreadsheets with data used in this blog
- EU Budget 2011
- Folketinget: Net EU Contributions
- PEW Research: The New Sick Man of Europe: the European Union