The Agreement on the Withdrawal of the UK from the European Union (EU) sets out, among other things, the UK’s contribution to and participation in the EU budget. Article 136 states that “the applicable Union law concerning the Union’s own resources relating to financial years until 2020 shall continue to apply to the UK after 31 December 2020, including where the own resources concerned are to be made available, corrected or subject to adjustments after that date”.

The UK pays budget contributions to the EU for the years up to 2020. Contributions are still to be finalised for the years 2010 to 2020 for both the UK and the EU Member States (MS).

The Gross National Income (GNI) estimates, on which a large part of calculating budget payments is based, are produced for the UK by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). They are published in the annual national accounts (Blue Book). The calculation of GNI in both the UK and the MS is subject to verification by the European Commissions’ statistical arm, Eurostat. When Eurostat find an issue relating to calculation of GNI they can place a reservation on a country’s national accounts. This means that improvements to data sources, methods or both may need to be implemented. Currently, the UK is subject to 23 reservations; 18 issues specific to the UK and five transversal issues applied to both the UK and all MS. The first of these reservations was lifted in October 2021. Many MS also have a large number of country specific reservations, mostly because of a major verification of sources and methods following the adoption a new accounting framework in 2014 (the European System of Accounting (ESA) 2010).

In the current GNI verification cycle, the earlier years still open for recalculating EU budget payments are now ”time-barred” except for revisions related to the reservations. The GNI data released by the ONS in the annual national accounts, often includes routine revisions to methods and source data that impact the UK published GNI estimates. These routine revisions must be excluded from GNI notified to Eurostat (known as GNI for own resources purposes) in the years that have become “time-barred”. This is a standard practice and also applies to the MS.

A further difference between published GNI and GNI for own resource purposes applies to the years 2010 to 2013 when GNI for own resources is based on the previous international standard (the ESA 1995 accounting framework). There is a standard list of important changes between the ESA 1995 and ESA 2010 frameworks. This is used to estimate the impact of differences in definitions between them.

Eurostat publish UK and MS GNI for own resource estimates (currently only 2020 consistent data are available). This dataset explains the differences between the UK GNI for own resources and the UK-published GNI estimates. It is produced for Eurostat each time the UK annual national accounts are updated.

A similar table will be produced in future years until all reservations are lifted. This will inevitably show further divergence between published and own resources versions of GNI.