By Constantinos Kallergis - Kathimerini

BRUSSELS – The Greek economy had net receipts of almost –5 billion from European Union funds in 2006, which represents 2.68 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, the highest in the EU.

Greece has had net receipts of –42 billion since 1997 and one of the highest ratios per capita.

Last year Greece collected –6.83 billion while the Greek contribution to the EU budget reached –1.83 billion, which amounts to net receipts of over –4.9 billion. This marks a major increase over previous years’ receipts, which illustrates the improvement in the absorption of EU funds. In 2005, net receipts stood at –3.9 billion, in 2004 at –4.1 billion and in 2003 at –3.34 billion.

This improvement is due to inflows from the structural funds, absorbed in the country’s infrastructure projects. They rose from –1.8 billion in 2002 to –2.7 billion in 2005, before jumping to –3.6 billion in 2006.

These fluctuations are also reflected by average absorption in the period from 2000 to September 2007 which does not exceed 58 percent, second from last in the old EU-15 behind the Netherlands, but much better than the new member states. The highest absorption was registered by the Republic of Ireland with 90 percent, while the Netherlands had 54 percent and Cyprus was lowest among EU-25 with just 41 percent.

Apart from the structural fund resources, the largest chunk disbursed in the EU last year, Greece also received –3 billion from the agricultural fund, mostly in the form of subsidies to farmers.