BRITISH EUROSCEPTICS:BRITISH PRIME minister David Cameron is facing a significant revolt from Conservative MPs if he accepts a budget increase for the European Union next year, even though he has already agreed with other EU leaders that it should rise by just less than 3 per cent, leaving the United Kingdom to pay an extra £430 million (€492 million) next year.
Mr Cameron has called demands from the European Parliament for a 6 per cent rise next year unacceptable, saying the budget should be frozen or cut, though the apparent confusion in London’s position – given that he has already accepted, in telephone calls with other EU leaders earlier this week, that he cannot stop a lower increase in telephone calls with other EU leaders – has riled Conservative MPs.
The UK’s contribution to the EU’s budget has risen dramatically in recent years following an agreement accepted by Labour’s Tony Blair in 2005 – from £3 billion in 2008/2009 to £4.7 billion in the year to last April, but it is to jump to £7.7 billion in this financial year, before jumping again to £8.6 billion in 2013/14 and £9.5 billion in 2014/15.
Reflecting the anger of Conservative Eurosceptics, Lord Tebbit said: “If parliament is indeed sovereign, then Mr Cameron should simply refuse flat to agree to any increase whatsoever in the EU’s budget. But he would do better to go down fighting than to surrender in some Vichy-style arrangement, pretending to hold on to sovereignty by agreeing to what Europe demands.”
Mr Cameron was unable to veto the agreement among EU states to a 2.9 per cent increase next year because the UK did not have a veto. But he now appears to want to ensure that the negotiations over the EU’s seven-year budget for 2014/20, where the UK and other states do enjoy a veto, is frozen or cut.
Conservative Eurosceptics now want him to link the UK’s demands for EU cutbacks to German chancellor Angela Merkel’s demands for changes to the Lisbon Treaty to discipline over-spending states. The treaty changes would not affect the UK, since it is not part of the euro zone, but they would require ratification by Westminster.
If that happens, Eurosceptics then want Mr Cameron to tag on a series of amendments that would claw back powers from Brussels, though this would create a nightmare scenario for Mr Cameron, who has struggled to ensure that his premiership is not dominated by the EU in the way that damaged the last Tory prime minister, John Major, so disastrously.
