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Comment by chx | Hacker News Reader

I posted 1.5 months ago about how a potentially catastrophic grid event three years ago instead showed how successful the EU cooperation is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38251463

As an aside, the UK is still part of this but thanks to Brexit they got the opportunity to finance this interconnector by themselves and not avail themselves to the vast funds from the European Energy Programme for Recovery. For example Malta did and while the Malta Interconnector is not a world record in length but it certainly is in the relative amount: currently it's already above a quarter of the energy needs of Malta and in 2015 the relevant EU report said it's expected this to grow to 35% eventually.

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> but thanks to Brexit they got the opportunity to finance this interconnector by themselves and not avail themselves to the vast funds from the European Energy Programme for Recovery

the UK was a net contributor to the EU

everything it "received" from the EU was paid for by itself

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48256318

sigh

The UK’s net EU budget contribution in 2014 was £9.8 billion https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...

Meanwhile the UK exported $276 billion worth of good to the EU more than half of its total https://www.worldstopexports.com/united-kingdoms-top-import-...

Not counting anything else just these two we could say the EU had a 3.6% tariff on UK imports (insanely low! check https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/statis_e/daily_update_e/ta... -- and note the post brexit deal only created a 0% tariff on goods and not services). And even that is a severe exaggeration because there were other benefits to this.

On the other hand, the way these things went it's very likely the UK already contributed to the EERP but got nothing out of it.

> very likely the UK already contributed to the EERP but *got nothing out of it*.

I for one am swimming in all the surplus cash not going to the EU any more, as well as all those upwards revisions to GDP and employment, and our pound soaring to new highs improving my purchasing power.

> The UK’s net EU budget contribution in 2014 was £9.8 billion

the state’s budget contribution. aka taxes and other income of the state.

> Meanwhile the UK exported $276 billion worth of good to the EU more than half of its total

not the UK, not the state. the opposite. the private sector.

And state income comes from...?

> Not counting anything else just these two we could say the EU had a 3.6% tariff on UK imports

this "analysis" makes the infamous Boris bus number look almost honest by comparison

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