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If a net recipient country were to leave the EU would the EU continue paying them after they had left?

• mrtksn 7y ago
  Paying what exactly? These are not really money transfers, it's not like UK sending 100 bucks and the EU giving 80 of it to Bulgaria and sending 20 back to the UK. It doesn't work like that. The money is used for infrastructure and other stuff, maybe Bulgaria gets 80 bucks for road building but the UK benefits from it by getting the engineering contract and after the project is completed they use these roads to make moving nuts from Turkey cheaper and faster so making their chocolate industry more competitive. Maybe it was UK's proposal to build that road and France supported the idea because they also want to make the rose petals imports from Bulgaria and electric hardware exports to Turkey cheaper? It's not a charity. So yes, if a net recipient country leaves the EU chances are that they will continue receiving EU funds just like the other countries that receive EU funds despite never being the EU in the first place.
• Traster 7y ago
  As a matter of fact, the EU is committed to continue to fund projects in the UK that had already budgeted. From the Institute for government. >If there is a withdrawal agreement, UK recipients will receive EU funding for projects agreed in the current funding cycle from the EU Budget. So yes, the already committed projects would continue and so the net recipient would continue to be a net recipient until the currently committed projects were completed. That is exactly why there is a divorce bill - because the UK is paying for the obligations its already committed to, and in return the EU is going to provide the services and funding that it has committed to. There is reason to think any other country would be treated differently.