Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-13-Speech-3-016"
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"en.20050413.2.3-016"2
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".
Mr President, after all that Mr Juncker said a month ago in this House and elsewhere to the effect that the Stability and Growth Pact was dead or at best needed to stagger on as it was, we now hear from the European Council that it lives again. Lazarus indeed strikes once more. But it is not living, it is fudging. In a year’s time this rotten pact will have to be fudged or dumped, as I suggested last time.
The meeting, however, was remarkable for something which it did not discuss: the UK’s budget rebate. Mr Chirac at least commented on it after the meeting, saying to reporters that it could no longer be justified, that it was from the past. Mr Barroso echoed those statements.
Perhaps you would like to justify the fact that the UK would pay into the EU 14 times more than France without the rebate, and, even with it, two-and-a-half times the French contribution. Mr Barroso also said that 70% of Commission spending was on agriculture when the rebate was agreed, whereas new proposals would reduce it to one-third. In fact, the proposals are that three-quarters of future spending will go to agriculture in poor regions. That is where the Commission’s priorities lie. That is of no comfort to the UK, rebate or no. Our Foreign Secretary said that the Commission’s proposal could mean a 35% hike in the budget, but he said our rebate remains a veto.
We have an election in the UK on 5 May. I would advise you not to try to join the flight from London to Brussels the following day. You would be caught up with party officials and government ministers, of whatever colour, as they rush over here to seek a compromise. It will be a milestone on the way to Britain’s exit. Worse is better because, in monetary terms, the EU will then be 14 times as bad for the UK as for France. Heaven knows, even with Mr Chirac’s desperate efforts, current polls show that the EU is becoming less popular in France every day."@en1
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