Britannia Radio

TELEGRAPH 3.12.08
EU membership cost to British taxpayers will treble to more than £6
billion, Treasury says
Britain's payments to the EU will more than triple in two years to
more than £6 billion under a failed deal to cut European farm subsidies.

By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent

Treasury figures show that the UK government will increase its
payments to European institutions even as ministers prepare to cut
money for programmes including hospital construction.

In 2008/09, Britain's net contributions to the European budget are
expected to be £2 billion. In 2010/11, the Treasury forecasts the
price of EU membership will be £6.5 billion.

The payments could end up being even higher since the contributions
are paid in euros and sterling has fallen to record lows against the
single currency and continues to slide on currency markets.

The contribution figures were revealed in the footnotes of last
week's pre-Budget report, which also sets out plans for huge
borrowing to be repaid by tax rises and spending cuts starting in 2010.

Figures elsewhere in the PBR show that as part of the planned clamp
on public spending, £1.2 billion has been cut from the Department of
Health's capital spending programme for 2010/11.

In all, £37 billion will be cut from the Government's spending plans
as a result of the PBR measures.

Yet even as domestic spending is squeezed, more taxpayers' money will
be spent on EU institutions and aid programmes.

Britain is a major net contributor to the EU budget, but UK payments
are reduced by an annual rebate, first negotiated by Margaret
Thatcher in 1984.
Britain's EU contributions are rising as a result of a 2005 agreement
by Tony Blair - with Gordon Brown's backing - to a staged series of
cuts in the rebate.
The extra British payments were meant to be matched by cuts in the
Common Agricultural Policy subsidies paid to farmers, which cost the
average British family over £300 a year. But France is trying to
renege on the agreement to review farm spending.

The Daily Telegraph last week revealed French plans to use the
country's EU presidency to find ways of protecting the CAP from
reform during negotiations in 2009. The issue may spark clashes
between Britain and France at an EU summit in Brussels next week.

Ministers insist Britain's EU membership is good value, pointing out
that the EU accounts for nearly 60 per cent of British trade,
supporting 3.5 million British jobs. [Not that hoary old one! We
trade with Europe and they with us. Since we import more from them
than we export to them, obviously there are even more EU jobs
dependent on Britain - say 5 million? -cs]

Mark Francois, the Conservative shadow Europe minister said: "These
figures show what a bad deal Gordon Brown agreed to when he and Tony
Blair signed away billions of pounds of our rebate. With a falling
pound these figures are now set to get worse.
"They gave away British taxpayers' hard earned cash but failed to
secure anything concrete in return. That money is now badly needed
yet Britain is still struggling to secure further necessary reform of
the Common Agricultural Policy."

Ruth Lea, of the eurosceptic think-tank Global Vision, said the
rising UK contribution "calls into question the affordability of EU
membership"
She said: "With the French digging in over CAP reform, there will be
no progress. It demonstrates the extraordinarily naïve deal the
Government struck in 2005. It was simply a giveaway with no guarantee
of any quid pro quo from other European countries."