Nav 8.1: The EU budget

Length	Browsing: 20 minutes Reporting: 10 minutes
Goal	To evaluate critically claims about the EU budget To learn how to work with the EU’s budget data
Introduction	Chapter 8 has given an overview of the revenues and expenditures of the EU. The EU budget is often criticized for being too large and/or inefficient. In order to counter such claims, the European Commission has created a website on which it tries to debunk a number of ‘EU budget myths’. In this exercise you will evaluate some of these myths and the argument(s) the Commission presents against them.
Steps	Go to the European Commission’s website on ‘EU budget myths’: Choose two ‘myths’ that the Commission discusses on this page and read the arguments of the Commission against them.
Questions	For each of the two myths you have selected answer the following questions Are the claims the Commission makes supported by the figures given in Chapter 8? What (implicit or explicit) normative position does the Commission take in debunking the myth? In conclusion: do you agree with the arguments of the Commission or not?
Links	http://ec.europa.eu/budget/explained/myths/myths_en.cfm