Cyprus contribution to EU budget reduced due to surplus

Cyprus‘ contribution budget will reduce by 2 million euro, as out of the 107.4 billion euro EU spending finally decided for 2006, 950 million euro was left unused.
According to an EU press release, these funds plus extra revenue will reduce this year’s national contributions to the EU budget by a total of 1,848 million euro.
The surplus of 1,848 million will reduce the amounts to be paid to EU coffers by member states this year as calculated on the basis of their respective share in EU Gross National Income.
The Commission has finalised last year’s budgetary surplus and included it into this year’s budgeting. As in recent years, in 2006 the implementation rate of the final budget continued to be high, reaching 99%. Only 950 million euro was not used (down from 1,077 million euro in 2005), out of over 107,378 million euro foreseen as 2006 payment appropriations.
Germany is the country with the highest reduction to its contribution (366 million euro), followed by the United Kingdom (308 million euro) and France (291 million euro).