Chaotic brexit costs Dutch citizens € 164 per person and year

If there is a no deal-brexit, the Netherlands will get an additional cost of at least € 34 billion up to and including 2030, that is € 2.8 billion per year according to SEO Research and quoted by Dutch newspaper FD.

Every Dutchman will have an additional cost amount of € 164 per year. That is what Nienke Oomes and Thierry Belt of SEO research bureau have calculated in a contribution to the economist magazine ESB.

The risk of the United Kingdom leaving the EU without an agreement on 30 March is real. The British Prime Minister Theresa May has announced that she wants to vote on her brexit deal on 15 January. Then we will know.

When calculating costs for Netherlands the research institution Oomes and Belt combined various calculations. Due to the disappearance of the UK as a member of the European Union, the Netherlands would have to pay € 1.25 billion extra in 2021 to the European budget, according to the Court of Audit’s estimates. In combination with a structural additional expense of € 2.5 billion to € 3 billion per year from 2026 onwards, the Netherlands would then pay an additional € 15 billion up to and including 2030.

In the case of a no deal-brexit, the expenses increase even more. In that case there is an additional Dutch payment of € 1.6 billion in 2019-2020. In addition, the government is also setting aside € 650 million to prepare the country for the Brexit, including for customs.

Finally, there are also the consequences for trade. The Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis has calculated that the Dutch economy has to surrender € 10 billion by 2030 because of tariffs and other trade-restricting measures for a no-deal-brexit. The 27 remaining countries of the EU and the United Kingdom then fall back on the rules of the World Trade Organization.

If an agreement is concluded, the cost price of the fall-back trade would only be € 7.5 billion. The costs for the Britons of the brexit vary from an estimated thousand euros, rising to more than five thousand euros.

Source: FD