Prime Minister David Cameron speaking during a press conference in Brussels yesterday.
Reuters/Brussels
In a vivid display of public fury at European Union technocrats, British Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday refused to pay a surprise 2.1bn-euro bill as EU leaders ordered an urgent review of how the budget figures were arrived at.
As Eurosceptics at home leapt on news that the EU executive - a “thirsty vampire” - had demanded a sum worth about a seventh of London’s annual payment after a rare statistical review of national incomes, Cameron demanded action from fellow leaders at a summit in Brussels calling the bill “completely unacceptable”.
He found some sympathy around the table - a visibly furious Cameron told a news conference that Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi had also lambasted “bureaucrats without a heart”, who made it harder to persuade citizens of the Union’s value.
“It’s an appalling way to behave,” Cameron said. “I’m not paying that bill on December 1. If people think I am they’ve got another thing coming. It is not going to happen.”
EU ministers will hold an emergency meeting on the issue next month. Cameron said he wanted to understand the technical calculations and was also ready to mount a legal challenge.
EU officials insisted that the revision, which also saw Italy and even crisis-hit Greece asked to pay more while France and Germany would get rebates, was part of an annual technical exercise and was handled by civil servants, not politicians.
But Cameron noted that annual revisions to the payments had never been so great - an effect, EU officials said, of a once in a generation review of how national incomes are calculated that found that Britain was richer than it had previously declared.
That, officials at EU statistics office Eurostat said, was a result in Britain’s case mainly of taking more account of money flowing in 2002-09 to non-profit organisations - from churches and universities to trade unions, charities and sports clubs.
Those statistics are provided by national agencies and, a spokesman for the European Commission’s budget directorate said, the revised calculations, which then have an impact on working out the annual contribution to the EU budget, had been reviewed by officials from national governments, as happens every autumn.
“This is a purely mathematical, technical process,” he said. “So much so, that member states agreed that the Commission can implement the adjusted figures by Dec. 1 every year without any need to submit a proposal to the Council (of EU leaders).”
The apparent lack of awareness of the political sensitivity of such big adjustments this year overshadowed a day of summitry intended to review efforts to revive economic growth. It also came up with 1bn euros ($1.27bn) of financial commitments from member states to fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
After an EU deal to curb climate change overnight, the anger on Friday at Brussels’ officials may dampen the final week of the present Commission led by Jose Manuel Barroso. He will make way for incoming President Jean-Claude Juncker on November 1 after 10 years in charge of the European Union’s executive branch.
Juncker has pledged a “very political” rather than technocratic approach to try and regain the trust of the halfbn citizens, many of whom are turning to anti-EU parties like the UK Independence Party. But, Cameron warned, the latest row with the EU made it harder for him to make the case to British voters that they should stay in the 28-nation bloc.
Cameron has demanded reforms and plans a referendum on EU membership if he manages to secure re-election next May.
His Eurosceptic opponents, gaining ground fast on his Conservative party, accused the premier of misleading voters.
“David Cameron once claimed that he had reduced the EU budget - but the UK contribution went up and now quite incredibly, our contribution goes up a second time. It’s just outrageous,” said UKIP leader Nigel Farage.
“The EU is like a thirsty vampire feasting on UK taxpayers’ blood. We need to protect the innocent victims who are us.”
Even Cameron’s pro-European Liberal Democrat coalition partners, led by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, said it was unacceptable to change membership fees “at the drop of a hat”.
Several fellow EU leaders urged Britain to respect long-standing EU rules and not blow an accounting exercise out of proportion. Finland’s prime minister said Cameron should not make “mountains out of molehills”.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande also told Cameron the rules must be respected, while the Italian and Dutch prime ministers voiced support for Britain, according to the official.
According to a table sent by the Commission to governments a week ago and seen by Reuters, Berlin and Paris will receive money back while the Italians and Dutch and even Greece, which has been in recession for six straight years, have to pay more.
Italian Secretary of State for European Affairs Sandro Gozi said Rome wanted to postpone the application of the new measure, but other EU countries played down the spat.
Cameron quoted Renzi as telling EU leaders: “This isn’t a figure, this is a lethal weapon. When people produce a lethal weapon like this, don’t they understand that people across Europe think the EU is technocrats and bureaucrats without a heart and without a soul?”
Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb said, however: “I think it’s very important that we don’t start treating the EU as some sort of a simplified accounting exercise.” He noted that Britain gets a rebate on its EU bill every year, unlike Finland.
After that rebate, worth 5.9bn euros this year, Britain was due to pay 14.7bn euros into the EU’s 140bn euro annual budget. Germany is by far the biggest net contributor followed by France and Italy.
The request for additional funding came at an awkward time for Cameron, who faces a general election in May with UKIP cutting into his Conservatives’ share of the vote.
The Eurosceptic party looks likely to win a second seat in parliament on November 20 when a lawmaker who resigned from the Conservatives is standing for UKIP in a by-election in southern England. This budget row is a gift to UKIP for that ballot.
Anti-EU right-wingers in Cameron’s own party also sought to exploit the issue ahead of a referendum on EU membership that he has promised for 2017 if the Conservatives win next year’s national election.
John Redwood, a leading anti-EU Conservative lawmaker, said: “He should first of all decline to pay. He should make it very clear that the UK doesn’t accept retrospective taxation.”
