BRITISH PRIME minister David Cameron is to strongly oppose demands from Brussels for significant increases in Britain’s contribution to the EU budget and instead call for spending cuts when EU leaders meet in Brussels tomorrow
While the summit is expected to be dominated by Germany’s demands for treaty changes to discipline states that let their spending get out of line, the leaders are also to hold preliminary discussions on the negotiation of the EU’s next seven-year budget.
Already, however, Mr Cameron has made it clear he will not accept that the EU’s budget should increase by 6 per cent at a time when national governments are paring back spending.
“It is completely irresponsible and unacceptable. We need an alliance to block increases. I think the French will also be keen on budget restraint and we should push this extremely hard. It should be a freeze or a cut,” he has said.
MEPs want the European Commission’s budget for 2011 to be £114 billion (€130 billion), a 5.9 per cent increase on 2010, though their call has been condemned by several EU governments – and not just the UK’s – who are struggling to cut their domestic spending.
British treasury secretary, Justine Greening, said it could not “be business as usual” in Brussels, though she opposed a vote supported by 34 Conservative MPs in the House earlier this month that demanded a fall in the size of Britain’s contribution to the EU budget.
Proposals in Brussels to increase fully-paid maternity leave to 20 weeks have further inflamed tempers in London.
Chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, has said the MEPs’ demand – which would add nearly £1 billion a year to the size of the UK’s contributions – was “unacceptable” at a time when the British public was facing £80 billion in spending cuts over the next four years.
The commission and some EU states have long wanted to end the £3 billion a year rebate won by former prime minister Margaret Thatcher on contributions, negotiated because the UK gets less from the Common Agricultural Policy.
Mr Cameron will tie the UK’s demand for frugality in Brussels to Germany’s desire for treaty changes on economic governance, which would not affect the UK directly since the country is not part of the euro zone, but which would require ratification in the House of Commons, which would create major political problems for Mr Cameron since he has previously promised voters a referendum on any further changes to the EU’s treaties.