neil-h

Can't believe i'm beating the usual suspects to this one (considering i'm usually fairly pro EU) but this is taking the ****. The last thing our economy needs is the EU coming knocking on the door expecting us to spend even more money bankrolling less sucessful countries.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29751124

dpb

We're all in it together

Butkus

What a gift this news is to Farage!

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Looks like the EU Bureaucrats want shut of us........

jonc

And yet France and Germany are set to receive rebates!! Says it all really.

Henrik

iTrader: (5)

This is the only reason I can see for this.

SURELY they must know how fed up people are with the EU in the UK (for the right or wrong reasons). I'm fairly pro EU, being an EU migrant myself, but even I think they're taking the pee now and it needs to stop.

warrenm2

Will you NOW please vote UKIP?! How many more of these issues do you need FFS?!

zip106

France getting €1b rebate and Germany €700m

Coincidental numbers there...

This is going to hurt Cameron in the biggest way possible.
He'll fight it for a bit, then it'll go quiet and we'll pay up.

Strood by-election has got even more interesting.

jonc

Could be, but if UKIP takes Tory votes, Labour gets in, no more EU referendum.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Please stop peddling this nonsense, UKIP are takjbg just as many votes off Labour and anyway Cameron will never give us a referendum despite what he says unless he wants to commit political suicide that is. Just for once stop trying to find any reason to vote for your beloved Tories!

jonc

So who do you think will be in No.10 after the General Election?

^Qwerty^

I don't think it will be too long before Millipede has his back to the wall on the whole EU question. The papers and TV are full of this story today. For years 'Europe' has been the main beating stick of Labour on the Tories come election time, but I expect they'll keep very quiet about it unless they are willing to commit to a referendum. I think the boot is well and truly on the other foot now. Some non-committal comment about immigration just won’t cut the mustard.

One interview I heard this morning on TV was that this request for money is not a negotiable issue so we don’t have a choice but to pay it. Dave really has to grow a pair today and give them the finger. In turn the EU will say something like, “we’ll take legal action to get the money” at which point, UK heads for exit stage left. Germany will panic, the French might do too, since I’ve no idea who’s going to pay their farmers to do f’all any more.

Like others on here, I really don’t understand why the EU would ask for this money when the obvious consequence is that it will just push more and more people to want out, but sometimes people are so wrapped up in their own little world and really do believe everything they say; they just don’t see or get any other point of view.

Outside of all that, I, like many others, want to know why I’m being taxed to death, yet we carry on giving money to an organisation that can’t even get its accounts signed off, is probably ripe with fraud and has now come and asked for even more money? It’s UKIP for me and has been for many months now.

Roll on the Rochester bi-election.

The next six months or so are going to be epic in terms of UK politics.

Petem95

Vote Tory, get Labour - or vote UKIP and get a Tory/UKIP collision which would pull us out the EU.

hodgy0_2

"He told Commission boss Jose Manuel Barroso he had no idea of the impact of such things", Downing Street said.

maybe he should not be in charge then?

neil-h

Someone is taking the **** there, they really are. Greece and Italy, 2 countries i was under the impression were doing pretty badly have to pay more money. Then France and Germany 2 countries that were supposed to be doing reasonable get a rebate.

lo

ditchmyster

iTrader: (7)

Lol, all of the countries on the winners list have a better standard of living than the UK too.

Martin2005

This was described as a technical exercise. In other words these rebates and additional costs are based upon rules that we helped draft 20 years ago.
That said, this is potentially a last hurrah from a commission that changes in a few weeks. It is utterly stupid politically though. What the hell do they think the reaction is going to be?
It will be interesting to see if the new commission is going to follow through with this. Cameron needs to just say no. Ultimately the relationship with the EU is 2-way,they needs us we need them, if they make us leaving more likely, they risk having the £8.5bn net contribution we make, that would need to be shouldered by the remaining members if we left. They are not going to like that too much. So Cameron does have significant negotiation clout here. You never know this might actually turn out to be a blessing for him (unlikely I know)?

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

And yet, when it comes to individual taxation, anyone who is deemed "rich" is not only expected to pay whatever taxes are deemed to be due, but to do so with a cheerful smile and a thankful heart, and to make no attempt to reduce their bill. To do so is, after all, tantamount to stealing from the poor.

It's an interesting double standard, no?

jonc

The EU is fast becoming a failing socialist experiment that is running out of money. Problem is none of UK the parties have any idea of how to "opt out" of UK's EU membership. Whilst there are many benefits that come with EU membership, this is fast being erroded by an increasingly overly bureaucratic and overbearing state, absurd legislations and massively inefficient public spending that evidently penalises success and rewards failures. UK ecomony shows greatest growth since the financial crisis due to us sucking up the pain of austerity only to be penalised with a £1.7bn demand from the EU. Germany and France, our biggest critic of UK's austerity measures, get handed €1bn for failing to address their economy. There comes a point when enough is enough.

dpb

Barosso successor has to be kept in in style he's accustomed to.....!!

dpb

Intresting the black economy is far worse in other eu countries, I know a bloke who works everyday on houses in my mothers village ( France ) whilst on rock an roll. He's not even shy about being dropped off by work van at dole office.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

France, for one, are in the **** with their economy.

Hollande hasn't done ANYTHING he said he would, and is now more hated than Sarko was.

Apparently, their collective debt is such that every French citizen would have to pay €80,000 to clear it.

I obviously can't speak for ALL French farmers, but the guy who lives in our hamlet is one of the most hard-working people I've ever met. He really does work 16 hour days in summer and when the cow breeding season is in full swing, sometimes does 24 hour days. September and October are his "quiet" months...normal dawn til dusk work......

There is a reason French farmers need subsidies: smaller farms. And the reason for that is buried in Napoleonic Law.

Petem95

I'm expecting 'all-talk-no-action' Cameron to come out saying the UK will be 'contesting this payment, standing firm' etc etc, then once all the fanfare has died down it'll turn out he backed down and paid it in full.

The failed EU project is a staggering waste of money. We get far less out than we put in.

Karl_mac_

Is there a number demonstrating how much trade into the EU (from the UK) has increased?

This is probably due to the UK's low participation in EU bailouts

tony de wonderful

I'm not fed up with the EU personally, it's the flood of third world 'asylum seekers' coming to this country which concerns me more.

tony de wonderful

Yeah good point. Most people don't realise that in the UK vast tracts of land are owned totally obscurely, often by families going back to feudal times and some via mega-corporations who buy the land to 'farm' the billions in subsidies. It's a big issue in this country that we never had proper land reform and it's a big hidden cost on our lives.

dpb

A couple of completely pointless posts, in a row, good going

zip106

There'll be a few more soon, thats for sure.

Petem95

Here we go, Cameron coming out say "WE WONT PAY IT.... by 1st December".. in other words he'll bow down to his EU masters and pay it quietly once this is all out of the headlines.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29754168

hodgy0_2

"It is an unacceptable way for this organisation to work - to suddenly present a bill like this for such a vast sum of money with so little time to pay it," he said.

is he talking about the EU or Wonga? - what a useless tool

either accept they are the rules and pay up, or leave

not rocket science