UK’s payments to EU jump by 60 per cent

August 22, 2009 by Infowars Ireland

www.telegraph.co.uk

Britain’s payments to the European Union will soar by almost 60 per cent next year, 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 last month just before parliament broke up for its summer recess.

The revelation will fuel the political debate over whether Britain benefits from being in the EU, after more than a quarter of UK voters in this year’s European elections backed parties which want to take Britain out of the EU.

It comes six weeks before Irish voters go to the polls in a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, in which a “yes” vote would put the controversial treaty – which transfers national powers to Brussels and creates a powerful new EU president – on course to become law in all 27 member states.

Last night the Conservatives branded government “incompetence” for the rise in contributions. The Opposition said the increased payments were the result of the “selling out” of Britain’s annual EU rebate by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown at an EU budget-setting summit 2005.

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 – won by Margaret Thatcher in 1984 – 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.
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