"The EU costs us too much," is one of the standard phrases in conversations about payments to the European Union (EU). But who really knows how the community is financed, how and why the financing of the community budget has developed in this way, and how the revenue side is structured today? In the first part of her book, Daniela Lindenthal describes the beginning of EU financing since the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951 and traces it up to the recent financial decisions made at the summit conference in Berlin in 1999. The second part examines the interests of Germany, Great Britain, and France in the EU. It questions what ideas these three countries have about the community and whether these ideas are reflected in the financing debates, and if so, how.