Friday

29th Mar 2024

New EU states want UK budget rebate scrapped

Poland and the Czech republic have joined "old" net-paying member states such as Germany in their calls for an end to Britain's EU budget rebate.

The UK enjoys a special yearly payback worth on average 4.6 billion euro per year from its EU contribution.

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  • New member states: "We would like everybody to pay what is due" (Photo: European Commission)

The rebate was secured by the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984, as a compensation for her country receiving little from EU agricultural funds.

The Poles and Czechs have now joined net-paying countries such as Germany and the Netherlands in their calls to end the special arrangement for the UK - a country which has in the meantime become the second-richest in the EU.

According to Reuters, the Polish Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz said on Monday (12 July): "We would like everybody to pay what is due".

Mr Cimoszewicz stated: "We do not want to make life harder for British taxpayers, but on the other hand our feelings are ambivalent when we think that poor Polish taxpayers must fill the gap in the EU budget resulting from the British rebate".

Under the EU treaty, the yearly payback to the British is partly financed from EU membership fees of the new, relatively poor countries which joined the EU last May.

The Czech Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Muller stated: "The British rebate should be abolished, but not in such a way that Britain loses everything".

He added: "We could imagine having some rebate, but not only to one country".

Commission plans

The European Commission is set to unveil plans on Wednesday which may please the Poles and Czechs.

The EU executive is set to propose scrapping the British rebate for a general system compensating all major net payers to the EU budget.

But the British, which regard the Poles and Czechs as key allies in other fields - mainly in their transatlanticism and anti-federalist stances - have signalled they will not easily accept an end to their rebate.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said on Monday according to Reuters: "Our position on the rebate is very clearly protected because decisions on the rebate have to be made by unanimity".

Under EU treaty rules, the British can veto any decision on the EU budget - including decisions on their rebate.

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