The Real Cost of the EUSSR. Hat Tip, Russia Today.

The cost of EU membership is unreasonably
high and not worth it for the UK, argues Dr
Lee Rotherham, a veteran from behind the
scenes of UK-EU relations. Dr Lee Rotherham
is an EU Policy Analyst at Taxpayers' Alliance
and author of Ten Years On: Britain Without
the European Union. He told RT that the
UK's overall bill for EU membership,
including direct and indirect costs for business
and the whole country, could be up to £110
billion a year. However, he added that
nobody knows that for sure because there
has not been a gross benefit analysis of EU
membership. Therefore there is a big
question over whether UK taxpayers' money
is being spent effectively, particularly in
regard to the unprecedented economic
problems the financial crisis brought to
Southern and Eastern Europe. Rotherham
said: "The cost of the [EU] regulations, in
terms of the UK, is greater than the actual
value of the trade that it is meant to regulate.
That's because the regulations cover ten per
cent of the British economy, which is our
exports to the EU, but actually cover 100 per
cent of the UK economy. Eighty per cent is
internal, ten percent is to the rest of the
world." The whole economy has to pay the
price of the 10 per cent regulated by the EU.
In real terms, the UK could buy a new
hospital every three days with the money it
spends on EU regulations and membership
fees."The British taxpayer is funding taxes and
naturally expects the money to be spent for
the benefit of themselves, as fundamentally it
is their money," Rotherham said. There are
about 10 different levels of association with
the EU, which are very similar in style, but
some without the burdens, regulations and
bureaucracy attached to them. And there has
to be an appropriate mechanism for the UK
that is not necessarily full membership,
believes Rotherham. "If you were a member
of a golf club and your bill kept going up
and you had to invite people to your house
every Sunday, and you had to put obliges
and a number of things were added to your
conditions of being a member of this golf
club -- you would not be happy with that,"
he said. But "it's the same principle." The EU
is just a part of the world and the UK,
"rather than linking itself too closely with one
part of the world trading system [EU], which
is decreasing in importance, the UK or any
European country should be involved in
more pro-active free trade across the world
rather than becoming a part of a regional
association which highly risks becoming a
protectionist bloc." "There are different
models to offer, let's not pretend it is either
the EU or oblivion, there are lots of choices
around," assured Rotherham.