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Gunther Oettinger said eurocrats need even more money to tackle growing crises like migration and the fight against terror at a time when the EU is losing its third largest net contributor. He warned that the massive loss of cash set to be unleashed by Brexit cannot be offset by cuts to the ballooning Brussels budget and will have to be made up by the bloc’s richer countries instead.

GETTY Gunther Oettinger said Germany must stump up for the EU budget

Just 10 of the EU’s 28 nations put more money into the project than they get out and it is extremely heavily reliant on just three - Britain, France and Germany - to keep going. France has endure years of economic stagnation which have prompted growing euroscepticism and the looming threat of Marine Le Pen, leaving Berlin in the firing line once more to pick up the tab.

GETTY The suggestion is likely to get short shrift from Angela Merkel

EXPRESS The EU is heavily reliant on just three big contributors

But with Germany already facing a mammoth bill for housing over a million refugees, which other European nations have refused to take in, the appetite to stump up even more cash for Brussels is limited. On top of that many German taxpayers feel that they have been unfairly required to bankroll successive bailouts of Greece and resent what they see as their hard earned money being squandered in the ‘lazy’ south. Officials in Berlin have already stressed they will not up their mammoth contribution, which amounts to a whopping 20 per cent of the entire EU budget, because of Brexit. In October defiant Deputy Finance Minister Jens Spahn insisted: "If Britain's contribution falls away, the EU budget will shrink. "There is certainly no automatic mechanism that (would make) Germany and other net contributors increase their contribution.”

We also need additional budget resources on top EU budget chief Gunther Oettinger

But his comments have now been directly contradicted by Brussels bigwig Mr Oettinger, who said that Germany would be required to come up with the necessary cash. In an interview with Handelsblatt he said Berlin and other net contributors would have to find “something more” to cover a projected £7.7bn black hole in the bloc’s finances. The top eurocrat said some money could be saved by slashing agricultural subsidies - which will be fiercely opposed by France - but added that “we also need additional budget resources on top” to cope with future challenges. He also re-floated the controversial idea of an EU-wide fuel tax, which would add a centime or two onto every litre of petrol, as a way of directly funding the EU project after Brexit.

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