“The European Commission is penalising Britain for taking tough decisions, putting in place a long-term economic plan and for having the most successful economy in the EU, while actually rewarding France for being an economic basket case“. That’s according to Syed Kamall, the leader of Conservative MEPs.
His comments come after it was revealed today that the UK has been given a back dated additional bill for £1.7 billion, which the EU have demanded be paid by December the 1st.
Prime Minister David Cameron was apoplectic on the TV today, so much so he could hardly get his words out as he said “It is an appalling way to behave. I am not paying that bill on December the 1st. If people think I am they have got another thing coming“.
Nigel Farage is jumping up and down in glee at the prospect of more UKIP votors, David Cameron is blustering about a bill which he’ll probably be forced to pay unless he can finesse enough EU leaders to block the entire EU budget and then demand concessions and the general population look at £1.7billion as a massive amount of money and look forward to the promised EU referendum which comes ever closer but never quite arrives.
There’s much been said in the media already about this bill, particularly galling as most of the cash the EU is demanding from us will go the the French and Germans as the two countries in line for the largest rebates… the so called powerhouses of the EU economy but both countries with finances in a much worse state then the UK.
The truth is though that it’s a tiny amount of money (just over £27 is your share of the bill in case you were wondering). The £1.7 billion is spread over many years from 2013 to as far back as 2002 and while it sounds a lot in governmental terms it’s practically a rounding error.
It’s still an absurd situation, there’s no other organisation I can think of who retrospectively recalculates your subs from a decade ago and demands you cough up additional funds (or indeed gives you cash back as will happen for some EU countries). It’s done and dusted, in national budgetary terms it’s a small amount of pocket change, write it off as an accounting error.
What this really does is highlight the question of how much the UK average voter appreciates the EU and whether they’ll be likely to vote to stay or go when and if we eventually get a referendum. This is not going to help the pro-european quarter but adds fuel to the fire for those who would rather we quit.
The one good thing is confirmation that the UK has the best economy in the EU. Whilst things may not have been that financially rosy for many in recent times, there are plenty of countries worse off than us. There are worse places than the UK to be running a business.
23 Responses
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Blair giving up our rebates contributes to this situation, if not causing it.
If I had my way I would give my £27 worth to some food bank charity in the UK, not that we should have any (as we are such a successful country)…!!
Every day it seems as if the EU and the bunch of clowns that run it(badly) are trying to force the UK to leave the EU. If there was a Referendum Today I would not think twice about voting to leave the EU to drown in its own stagnation and incompetence.
Only a few days ago there was statements that the UK only had any credence in the World because it was part of the EU. Has the EU any credence at all? Basically Germany and the UK is respected around the World. But who in their right mind has any respect for the other countries most of whom are basket cases and the EU with its disaster of a currency the Euro is a joke from beginning to end. GET OUT NOW.
There are far better things people would rather do with their £27 than send it to the bloated EU for more of their vanity projects and lavish trips for unelected bureaucrats. Just another example of the evils of socialism – punish success and give the money to the lazy to try to make us all equal.
Its odd that the media has made no mention we received a £3 billion rebate in 2012, while other countries paid more.
UK gives EEC £15B but we only receive £5.5B back in subsidy/grants. £3B rebate compensates for limited kick backs. UK net contribution = £6.5B and this gets distributed to France and Germany and others.
EEC now want extra £1.7B increasing net contribution by 26% and increasing ebay style hoops so no additional benefits for UK
The cost of our net contribution to the EU is running at just over 0.5% of our GDP.
To put that in perspective it is roughly the amount we spend on overseas economic and military aid.
The sum is simply dwarfed by our spending on Health, Education & DWP (mostly to pensioners) alone.
For that we gain membership of the largest trading block in the world with a population and GDP greater than the US.
In terms of membership of a very exclusive club indeed some would say that is reasonable ticket price to get to play across Europe.
I think it would be bad thing if we left.
However I would like to point out Nigel Farage is an MEP, he doesn’t turn up to most of the meeting, yet paid to go and do his job there, he also earned millions from the EU as an MEP.
If he was truly worried about the EU he would do to meeting to block things and try and make the EU better and if he was so worried about the amount of money the EU spent he should give his wages to charity or work as an MEP for free.
Sadly governments in general are all bloated and need a massive shake up.
Give and take.
UK should lead EU.