EU Customs Union: halves membership rebate for Brexit

The European Commission has proposed that it halves the customs duties rebates to members of the EU Customs Union. The EU currently retains €20billion for its own income of the €25billion in collected common tariffs. The proposal is to raise this to €22.5billion.

The extra funding will be retained by the EU as part of its €1.3 trillion seven-year budget which commences in 2022 after the end of the UK’s Brexit transition period.

The EU has to fill a Brexit deficit of up to €15billion per annum. Member states still have to review the measures, and will experience stiff opposition from the few net budget contributors, led by the Netherlands.

EU fills Brexit budget hole

The EC has proposed the following own-revenue generating measures including:

• Cutting the share of customs duties due back to member states from 20% to 10% of import collections
• Taxing member states 20% of their carbon emissions auction revenues
• Introducing a €0.80 per kilo levy on countries’ non-recycled plastic packaging
• Charging 3% on net Corporate Tax base calculations (CCCTB)

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