Economist demolishes rapport on leaving EU
TiU’s most mediagenic economist Sylvester Eijffinger has nothing good to say about a rapport that claims The Netherlands are better off without the EU. This week, Dutch politician Geert Wilders was very pleased to enter the media with the rapport. Eijffinger calls the results ‘no addition to a serious discussion’.
Capital Economics, an English research company, performed a research commissioned by Wilders and his party. The subjects were the costs and benefits of the Dutch participation in the EU. Conclusion: it costs more than it yields.
Sylvester Eijffinger, professor in Financial Economy at TiU, completely demolishes the rapport. According to him, wrong assumptions are used to get to this conclusion. Costs that would be made anyway are contributed to the EU and even if we would go back to our old monetary unit, the gulden, we would not be independent on the financial market. ‘Back when we still had the gulden, we almost completely followed the German Mark.’
Eijffinger does think it’s important that economists and politicians explain about the costs and yields of our participation in the EU, even though it’s hard to clarify it all. Leaving the EU is no option, he says. ‘It’s not like a game, there’s no reset button.’
