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Comment by the_cramer | Hacker News Reader

Another question: what is done with this money?

I assume it's similar to the Microsoft case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Commission "The fines will not be distributed to the companies that lost income due to Microsoft practices. The money paid in fines to the European Court goes back into the EU budget"

2019 EU's budget was 148m EUR.

Budget overall is used for a mix of growth (e.g. building bridges or other infracstructure), security (border patrol), regional help (e.g. after wildfires). They do a lot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_the_European_Union#E...

148 Billion euros

The number in the article does look a little weird, XXX.XXX millions

The thousands separator in many places in Europe is a dot.

See eg. https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19455-01/806-0169/overview-9/ind...

The number seems low and I am curious, does that $148B include military spendings? Or does each state contribute with their military separate from monetary contributions to run the EU?

No, this is the budget for the European Union's funds and institutions only. It's separate from the national budgets of its member states although it's funded out of them with each country contributing proportionately.

Military spending and the maintenance of armed is still an exclusive competence of member states and will likely remain so even as there's more integration of rapid intervention and peacekeeping HQs within the EU.

Total defence spending across the entire EU is around €200 billion.

The €148 billion does include a security and defence budget of around €44 billion a year, most of which goes to a joint R&D fund (European Defence Fund), the European Peace Facility, and agencies like Europol and Frontex.

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