It's not front-page news but ARD (public TV news, German Channel One) brought this up in the morning....as BREXIT finally occurs, the EU has more or less determined that it won't cut back on grants or dispersal of funding.
Logically, that means someone has to make up the difference of the Brits being gone.
The extra amount now put upon the nation of Germany? Three billion Euro...more or less. The final bill has yet to be figured up.
For the sake of this discussion....the Germans are the heavy-weight contributor to the EU budget.
Currently, the Germans put around thirteen billion Euro into the pot and probably sees around seventy-percent of the money come back as a 'gift' from the EU folks. The rest is used to finance the EU and 'gift' other nations of a lesser degree.
Where the three billion will come from? Either the Germans will have to invent a new taxation gimmick, or they have to go and cut from various services (maybe even cut on that defense budget again). Course, from the three billion going...you can probably expect three-quarters of it to come back to some German city for a grant to cover some program or building structure.
A publicly debated situation? No. I doubt if the German news media will mention much of this, and the money will quietly just get collected and sent off to Brussels.
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