Britain is one of the few nations putting more money into the European Union’s coffers than it takes out, making an annual net contribution of around £10 billion. EU leaders are only happy for one of the club’s biggest benefactors to leave as long as it saves them from picking up the bill.
Yet should it really be up to the British to bail them out?
Why should Britain pay billions as a Brexit bill so jet-set Juncker can keep travelling in style?
Asa Bennett
10 August 2017
The Telegraph
The Juncker has landed Credit: LUKAS BARTH /EPA
Britain is one of the few nations putting more money into the European Union’s coffers than it takes out, making an annual net contribution of around £10 billion. EU leaders are only happy for one of the club’s biggest benefactors to leave as long as it saves them from picking up the bill.
Yet should it really be up to the British to bail them out? The latest travel expenses released by the European Commission, after three years of resistance, show that its 28 commissioners - most of them unknown to the general public - are living it up at their expense.
In the first two months of 2016 alone, nearly half a million euros was spent on ferrying these commissioners - and their flunkies - around Europe. That works out as each commissioner claimed around £8,000 per month on travel.
Brussels bureaucrats couldn’t be bothered to release details about the rest of the year due to the “excessive administrative burden”. Their excuse is risible, but understandable given the profligacy they deemed appropriate.
Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief, spent almost £68,000 on chartering a plane to travel to Baku, Azerbaijan.
Jean-Claude Juncker spent £24,000 flying with nine others - privately of course - to Rome. This is the same man who wants Britain to pay “around” £50 billion before it leaves the bloc. Is that just so he and his colleagues don’t have to fly with the general public?
The EU wants Britain to cough up a “single financial settlement”, but what would it go towards? The bloc is set to spend around £142 billion this year, so a bumper British bonus would save it from having to worry about how much money it wastes.
The Commission would point out that its spending is scrutinised by the European Court of Auditors, yet these are the same people who have refused to sign off the bloc’s accounts for over 20 years due to their continued “material level of irregularity”. Why should Britain help prop up an institution that can’t even get its own books in order?
Brussels is desperate for the British to get their chequebook out. Michel Barnier has said during the Brexit negotiations that his side’s estimate of how much Britain owed was “incontestable” and threatened “explosive” consequences unless it was met.
What would be truly explosive is if the EU learned how to be prudent with the public's money.
Why should Britain pay billions as a Brexit bill so jet-set Juncker can keep travelling in style?
Yet should it really be up to the British to bail them out?
Why should Britain pay billions as a Brexit bill so jet-set Juncker can keep travelling in style?
Asa Bennett
10 August 2017
The Telegraph
The Juncker has landed Credit: LUKAS BARTH /EPA
Britain is one of the few nations putting more money into the European Union’s coffers than it takes out, making an annual net contribution of around £10 billion. EU leaders are only happy for one of the club’s biggest benefactors to leave as long as it saves them from picking up the bill.
Yet should it really be up to the British to bail them out? The latest travel expenses released by the European Commission, after three years of resistance, show that its 28 commissioners - most of them unknown to the general public - are living it up at their expense.
In the first two months of 2016 alone, nearly half a million euros was spent on ferrying these commissioners - and their flunkies - around Europe. That works out as each commissioner claimed around £8,000 per month on travel.
Brussels bureaucrats couldn’t be bothered to release details about the rest of the year due to the “excessive administrative burden”. Their excuse is risible, but understandable given the profligacy they deemed appropriate.
Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief, spent almost £68,000 on chartering a plane to travel to Baku, Azerbaijan.
Jean-Claude Juncker spent £24,000 flying with nine others - privately of course - to Rome. This is the same man who wants Britain to pay “around” £50 billion before it leaves the bloc. Is that just so he and his colleagues don’t have to fly with the general public?
The EU wants Britain to cough up a “single financial settlement”, but what would it go towards? The bloc is set to spend around £142 billion this year, so a bumper British bonus would save it from having to worry about how much money it wastes.
The Commission would point out that its spending is scrutinised by the European Court of Auditors, yet these are the same people who have refused to sign off the bloc’s accounts for over 20 years due to their continued “material level of irregularity”. Why should Britain help prop up an institution that can’t even get its own books in order?
Brussels is desperate for the British to get their chequebook out. Michel Barnier has said during the Brexit negotiations that his side’s estimate of how much Britain owed was “incontestable” and threatened “explosive” consequences unless it was met.
What would be truly explosive is if the EU learned how to be prudent with the public's money.
Why should Britain pay billions as a Brexit bill so jet-set Juncker can keep travelling in style?
