> The EU government is about 1% of the GDP this is not actually true, the way the EU has been setup is very clever: it does not attribute a large proportion of

> The EU government is about 1% of the GDP this is not actually true, the way the EU has been setup is very clever: it does not attribute a large proportion of costs directly incurred by its policies to itself. when powers are transferred to the EU, the national institutions used to implement those powers (that previously served the national government) remain, but now implement the EU's legislative program, but the costs incurred doing so are still paid by the national treasuries. prime examples are civil aviation, food safety and agriculture policy. these departments are essentially operated by and for the EU, yet the expenses of those departments are not correctly attributed to the EU. if these expenses were correctly attributed for that 1% would likely be 3-4x higher, and people would be a lot more upset.