Revenues from EU Funds in the Context of 20 Years of Czechia Membership and their Statistical Recording

Abstract

The year 2024 marks twenty years since Czechia joined the EU. This anniversary offers an opportunity to evaluate the benefits and losses associated with the membership, and a sufficiently long time series allows such an evaluation to be made on representative data sets. Among others, the evaluation of the membership based on drawing financial funds from the EU budget stands out. Since joining the EU in 2004, the Czech Republic has received one trillion crowns more from the EU budget than it has paid into it. At the same time, in no year since 2004 the balance of income and expenditure in relation to the EU budget has been negative. This article describes basic principles of the EU funds and deals with accrual recording in national accounts and the cash flow concept. In the context of 20 years of EU membership, it then evaluates the net position of Czechia in relation to the EU and the influence of income from the EU on the revenue of general government.

Keywords

• european union
• general government
• national accounts
• eu funds