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Austria to aim to keep extra EU costs down following Brexit: chancellor

Xinhua, April 5, 2017 Adjust font size:

Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern on Wednesday said he hoped to keep the additional costs for his country resulting from Brexit to a minimum, Austria Press Agency reported.

Kern said he was concerned there would be extra costs for current European Union (EU) members in the next EU budget.

It is therefore a goal to limit these costs as much as possible, "at best to zero," he said.

He noted that both parties to the coalition government, his own Social Democrats and the People's Party, shared the same view.

His comments follow recent estimates from German experts that Austria's contributions as a result of Brexit could increase by 200 to 400 million euros (213 million to 426 million U.S. dollars) each year.

In response Kern said if revenues drop, spending must also follow suit.

Brexit is expected to create a funding gap of 14 billion euros; EU staff costs total about eight billion euros.

"So one will still also have to systematically go through all other elements of expenditure," he said.

He acknowledged that tough decisions would have to be made for the next EU budget. As Austria receives significant EU funding in the agricultural, regional development, and infrastructure sectors, questions will have to be asked concerning "what we need and what we don't." Enditem