Assessing the costs of the EU, its administrative structure and its benefits are recurring themes in public discourse. Let’s have clarity.<\/p>\n
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The recent government crisis <\/span>and the heated political debate on many issues, including that of European funds and the potential “loss of opportunities” in case of delays on the NRP, bring to light a very frequent and debated question with broad and interesting implications: how much does Europe cost and (in parallel) how much does “non-Europe” cost?<\/span><\/p>\n As <\/span>\n often happens<\/span>\n<\/a> when (seemingly simple) questions deal with numerical data, a small introduction of methodological clarification is necessary.<\/span><\/p>\n The question can be rephrased in at least two different ways, resulting in different answers, both of which are meaningful and complementary:<\/span><\/p>\n We will try to answer both questions. For both, we will try to clarify the margin of variability in the data, based on the parameters considered and assessments that are not in all cases purely arithmetic.<\/span><\/p>\n The first, more circumscribed question concerns the costs of the European “administrative machine” compared to its national and local counterparts. In analyzing the data, certain factors should be kept in mind that structurally distinguish the European “administrative machine” from other national and local “administrative machines.”<\/span><\/p>\n Having said that, let us try to compare the 2022 budget of three different administrations: the<\/span>\n European Union<\/span>\n<\/a>, the <\/span>\n Italian State<\/span>\n<\/a> and the <\/span>\n Municipality of Rome<\/span>\n<\/a> (source documents can be accessed through the respective links).<\/span><\/p>\n\n
Costs and effectiveness of European administration<\/b><\/h2>\n
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