There was something very odd about the fiasco of David Cameron's much-vaunted claim that he was going to bang the table at the European Council and demand a halt to the proposed £6 billion rise in the EU budget. No doubt Mr Cameron had in mind those heroic days when Mrs Thatcher spent five years at European Councils demanding her budget rebate. But the annual EU budget has nothing to do with the European Council.Under the Lisbon Treaty, the real power over this now lies with the EU Parliament, which voted for a 6 per cent increase – although this still has to be agreed with the Council of Ministers, a quite different body from the European Council. That is why Mr Cameron's bid for glory was not even on the European Council 's agenda. If the Council of Ministers is now asking for the increase to be cut from 6 per cent to 2.9 per cent, the Parliament may still gets its way in the end, keeping the increase to the 6 per cent it voted for. So was Mr Cameron's heroic pose just deliberate play-acting? Or, more worryingly, is it possible that he hasn't read the Lisbon Treaty – the one on which he wouldn't allow us a referendum and which in the end he meekly accepted?David Cameron went to Brussels to bang the wrong table
Mr Cameron's defiance was pure theatre, since the European Council does not set the EU budget, says Christopher Booker
Sunday, 31 October 2010
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