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UK Must Pay More To EU
No, not Everything Ulster, the other EU, the European Union. The French, German and Polish leaders today called for an end to the UK's rebate, negotiated by Margaret Thatcher in 1984 because Britain was paying an unfairly high contribution to the then EEC. Now the cheese-eating surrender-monkeys, the towel-throwing deck-chair theves and ... well, Poland want us to go back to paying over the odds.
Follow up:
Since 1984, when Thatcher won the rebate, Britain's overall wealth has increased and the French/German/Polish trio claim that the rebate is no longer appropriate. Cancelling it would mean Britain's net contribution to the EU would double from 0.25% of GDP to 0.5%. Sovereignty, a Euro-sceptic journal, calculates the cost of EU membership as £678 per year, per person (including children).
These calls are nothing new; the French have been calling for an end to the rebate for years. They're less keen on reforming the CAP, from which they especially benefit, which results in half the EU budget going to subsidise European farmers. Even the Europe 'Britain in Europe' group said last year
"The real problem with the EU's budget is not that Britain pays too little, but that too much of the EU's spending is wasted on the iniquitous Common Agricultural Policy. The CAP gobbles up two-fifths of the EU budget and biases the EU's spending towards countries that happen to have a relatively large agricultural sector, such as France. Reforming and slimming down the CAP would not only be good for taxpayers, consumers and developing countries. It would also greatly reduce the need for Britain's budget rebate."
Philippe Legrain, Director of Policy at Britain in Europe
Source: Britain in Europe website
Today the French premier, Jacque Chirac, repeated his calls in a move that obviously has nothing to do with trying to persuade the French people to ratify the EU constitution (by showing, need it be shown, how much the EU can be dominated by France).
The new twist to the tail was that he was flanked by a German leader (nothing to do with upcoming elections in Germany or the leader in question trying to score points by emphasising German domination of the EU decision making process) and the Polish leader. The UK paying more into the EU obviously means poor countries like Poland get more handouts. Who knows, Poland could be the new Ireland!
Do these people not realise that Britain is already the country most likely to reject the EU constiution? If they really want it to pass, what on Earth are they doing trying to piss us all off like that? Sacré bleu!