Budgetary operating balances in the assessment of the financial aspects of European integration

Abstract

The aim of the study was to assess whether the presentation of financial flows between states and the EU budget provides constructive information, since the literature on the subject emphasizes that the assessment of the benefits and costs of integration has a much broader and more complex scope resulting from the free movement of people, services, goods and capital. In the paper it was used data from 2019 taking into consideration the last year of the UK's full membership in the European Union and a year before COVID-19 pandemic which also has influenced EU finance. In addition, the current operating balances of the member states are presented based on the latest data from 2022 referring to the author’s modified algorithm for calculating operating budgetary balances according to the guidelines of the European Commission. Findings resulting from the conducted research are as follows: referring to the formulated hypotheses it should be stated that there are no grounds to reject them. Correction mechanisms on the revenue side of the European Union budget affect the operating balance of a given country, although they do not have to cause a change in the operating balance from negative to positive or vice versa. In addition operating budgetary balances do not provide a true picture of the benefits and costs of European integration. Providing the value of budget balances for member states in relation to the EU budget should be considered a strictly accounting procedure. The wider use of operating budgetary balances can be considered a denial of the essence of European added value, because they refer to the idea of "fair return" as the expectation of a certain adequacy between the amounts paid and the funds received from the budget.