THE EUROPEAN UNION

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Britain's payments to the European Union will soar by almost 60% in 2010, according to figures "buried" in government documents. The Treasury statistics show that the UK's net contribution to the EU will increase from £4.1 billion this year to £6.4 billion in 2010/11. The figures were published in the Treasury's annual Community Finances statement, which was slipped out just before parliament broke up for its summer recess.

The latest Treasury figures also show that Britain is currently the second biggest net contributor, behind Germany. The new net UK contribution of £6.4 billion is the equivalent of £257 for every household in Britain, or 3p on the standard rate of income tax. Britain's budget rebate is to shrink from £5.1 billion this year to £3.3 billion in 2010/11. The percentage increase in the net contribution between this year and next year is by far the biggest between any two years since 2003, according to the Treasury figures.

In 2003/4 Britain's net contribution was £3.2 billion, and in following years was at £3.9 billion, £4.4 billion, £3.5 billion, £4.2 billion and £3.0 billion before hitting £4.1 billion this year under current spending plans. Britain's EU rebate was designed to compensate the UK for the high costs of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which benefits Britain much less than other countries because of its relatively small farming sector.

Before the last big round of EU negotiations, Tony Blair promised parliament that the "UK rebate will remain and we will not negotiate it away." However, at the European Council in December 2005 he negotiated away around 20%, or £7.2 billion, of the rebate Britain would have received over the period 2007 to 2013. As part of the "deal", Britain received promises of cuts to the CAP subsidies paid to farmers.

However, these have not so far been forthcoming, with the French government digging in its heels over plans to reform the CAP. The December 2005 negotiations saw allies of Gordon Brown, then the Chancellor, claiming that the former prime minister had gone against the wishes of the Treasury. After Germany and the UK, the biggest net contributors to the EU budget are the Netherlands, France and Italy. The biggest net beneficiaries are Greece, Poland and Spain. (Source: Daily Telegraph, Aug/09)

Treasury documents show that the cost of Britain’s membership of the EU will jump by £1.2billion next year. Official figures show Britain’s net contributions to the European Union will jump from £4.8billion in 2009/10 to £6billion in 2010/11. This means that Britain’s contribution to the Commission will have doubled in just three years from £3billion in 2008/09, according to footnotes in the 216-page pre-Budget report. Britain is a major net contributor to the EU budget, but UK payments were reduced by an annual rebate, worth £4billion a year, first negotiated by Margaret Thatcher in 1984.

The net EU contributions are rising because of a deal struck in 2005 by Tony Blair, with Gordon Brown’s backing, to a staged series of cuts in the rebate. The rebate to Britain from the EU is worth £5.6billion in 2008/09, £5.1billion in 2009/10, and £3.3billion in 2010/11. Mats Persson, research director at Open Europe, said, “The EU budget represents exceptionally poor value for taxpayers’ money, it’s wasteful, irrational and hopelessly out of date. British taxpayers have good reason to be angry about their money being spent on wasteful EU projects rather than on closing the budget deficit or lowering taxes at home.”

A report claimed that Britain will have lost out on £9.3billion by not receiving the full rebate between 2007 and 2013. The figure was far higher than the previous estimate, which was £7.2billion between 2007 and 2013. Research by the House of Commons library showed that the lost income from rebate was the equivalent of £344 for every household in Britain. Meanwhile, it emerged that EU staff are planning to strike in order to keep a 3.7% pay rise, which critics are comparing with the pay freeze being experienced by many member states. (Source: Daily Telegraph, Dec/09)

Euro MPs rake in up to £363,250 a year in expenses without producing a single receipt. During the five-year term of a Brussels parliament, an MEP can clock-up £1,816,250 in expenses. On top of that the Euro fatcats will soon be on a basic salary of £83,282, after awarding themselves a pay rise of 47% and they pay income tax of just 15% on it. When they leave, MEPs are awarded £41,573 in “transition payments” and pension rights of £30,000 a year and in addition to that, Brussels lawmakers enjoy a huge array of free perks, including 60 mudbaths a year. British taxpayers are pouring £7billion a year into the EU.

They can also claim the cost of bandages for varicose veins, contact lenses and batteries for hearing aids. MEPs can have five relaxing sessions of mudbaths, hydromassage, hydrotherapy and acupuncture every month with a doctor’s note. They all travel business class on aircraft. And dental repairs worth £150 per gold crown are available. Receipts are not required to prove claims for MEPs’ office costs, staff, travel or other expenses. Being able to claim a flat rate for all expenses, rather than having to submit receipts, allows them to pocket the money without buying anything, or buying cheap and pocketing the difference.

Taxpayers are also forced to fund the extraordinary £180million-a-year cost of the European Parliament sitting in Brussels AND Strasbourg. Its 1,745 workers and their offices, including their paperwork, are shipped between Belgium and France every month, at our expense. A report written in 2006 by the EU’s Internal Audit official Robert Galvin has only been seen by a handful of MEPs and was kept secret until last year. It showed MEPs were paying companies for office and staff support — which turned out to be a children’s day-care centre and a company which traded wood. Bonuses were regularly paid to staff of up to 19 times their salary. (Source: The Sun, May/09)

Dutch MEP Paul van Buitenen has published a confidential internal report on abuse of staff allowances described by a colleague as "dynamite". The report highlights money paid for non-existent staff via a system of "service providers" or accountants. He posted a short summary of the report on his website and could face a reprimand for breaching secrecy. British Euro MP Chris Davies who leaked details of the document said he was delighted it was now public.

Among the revelations made by the internal auditors are a large number of lay-off payments made to staff of MEPs who were not re-elected. Ten were made to assistants even though they were working for another MEP and one member of staff is said to have accumulated part-time payments from 12 MEPs over a three-month period. The auditors also refer to abuse of travel costs and expenses. In one case, the expenses amount to three times the staff member's salary.

Not everyone on the budgetary control committee is impressed with Mr van Buitenen's decision to go public with the report. Fellow Dutch MEP Jan Mulder, who had originally been in favour of making the details public, said he would not have breached the secrecy order. British Labour MEP Eluned Morgan said she had written personally to Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering, calling for the report to be made public. A spokesman for Mr Poettering said if the rules on confidentiality had been broken, it would be up to the committee's chairman to make a complaint. (Source: BBC News, Mar/08)

EU snoopers are pressing for sinister new powers to spy on every taxpayer in Britain. Brussels wants European Union countries to allow its bureaucrats the right to delve into millions of people’s personal financial details. The wide-ranging powers would allow faceless officials across all 27 EU member states to access highly sensitive information right down to bank account transactions. It means officials from the likes of Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia and Slovakia would be able to view the salary details, spending habits and savings of 50million British taxpayers without their knowledge. Politicians and pressure groups reacted with outrage yesterday at the latest move towards an EU-wide surveillance state, describing the proposal as “a power-grab” by Brussels.

They fear the move would create an all-powerful and unaccountable bureaucracy, adding to the threat of personal and financial information falling into criminal hands. Bill Cash MP, chairman of the European Foundation think-tank, said, “This new shift in EU legislation is a real threat to every UK taxpayer. It is a true mark of how British citizens have come to live under Britain’s undemocratic surveillance state where their personal data is shared across Europe, without their consent or knowledge.” The scheme is the brainchild of the EU taxation commissioner Laszlo Kovacs, who tabled the proposal in August calling on member states to agree to give each other access to tax data to counter VAT fraud. The Hungarian socialist wants to set up a new body of snoopers called Eurofisc to collect financial details across the EU to tackle fraudsters. (Source:Daily Express, Sep/09)

MEPs may ban shops from using the phrase "a dozen eggs" by making it illegal to sell food by numbers. A new law on the blocks at the EU would force shops to sell food by weight only. Common-sense descriptions including six eggs or a four-pack of apples would be outlawed and replaced simply by the weight in grams. The new Food Labelling Regulations Act could come into force as early as next year.

Trade magazine The Grocer, which discovered the planned laws, said, "It tried to ban pounds and ounces. It introduced rules on bendy fruit and veg. Now, if controversial EU Food Labelling Regulations are approved, Europe will outlaw the sale of groceries using numbers, which is the oldest, most basic measurement of all." The draft legislation is meant to stop "description on packaging" and let countries exempt some foods.

But MEPs voted against an amendment allowing exemptions. Federation of Bakers director Gordon Polson said, "The problem is now the exemption has been omitted from the legislation, it will be very difficult to get it put back in." A British Retail Consortium spokesman added, "Each egg box would have to be weighed individually. There is still time for this to be changed. We are pushing hard." (Source: News of the World, Jun/10)

Britain's annual contribution to the EU is set to soar to just under £9billion by 2015. The huge sum, which does not even include the multi-billion eurozone bail-outs to Greece, Ireland and Portugal, will add hundreds of pounds to the tax bill of every household in the UK. There is also a warning in Budget papers that the financial burden Brussels imposes on British taxpayers is set to go up by about £200million a year when former communist state Croatia is allowed into the EU in 2013.

The Economic and Fiscal Outlook, published by the Office for Budget Responsibility, shows that Britain’s net contribution to Brussels will rise from £7.6billion this financial year to £8.9billion in 2014-15, a huge 17% increase. The document also confirms that in the last year Britain’s contribution rose from £4.7billion to £7.6billion after the UK’s rebate negotiated under Labour was halved. By the expected date of the next general election in May 2015, Britain’s total contribution to the EU will reach £13.6billion.

However, this will be reduced by a rebate of £4.3billion plus some other payments from Brussels. The document says “a number of additional uncertainties” surround Britain’s contribution over the next five years. It adds, “The expected accession of Croatia, which will be included in the forecast after negotiations close in the summer, could cost the UK some minor amounts over this period and up to £0.2billion per year in the long run.” (Source: Daily Express, Mar/11)

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