UK EU Budget

yorkshirekev

I think that the Polish MEP should be careful what he wishes for as far as Britain leaving the European Union is concerned. The law of unintended consequences could affect a fair few of his countrymen and women (work permits etc).

I do resent a rep from one of the accession countries basically telling us to b***er off. They are not long in the club themselves.

vivatifosi

Daedalus wrote: »

People will always be experiencing hardship here. Not that I support an increase, but I dislike this short sighted flawed argument that 'Charity begins at home'. It is part of the reason we are even in this mess, spending money to temporarily solve some hardship now instead of investing and solving more hardship later.

You have twisted my argument there. As I said, I think the budget should be frozen, not cut. Yes I do believe charity should begin at home, however I also feel that charity does not need to be acute and short term.

There is fat in the EU and valuable programmes that genuinely do benefit the poorer in the union will not be hit if a small cut or freeze is made. There is much that can be done to cut the EU's spend at an administrative and executive level without even touching the programmes. That should clearly be the first step. How is it that such cuts never even get on the agenda when the majority of governments in Europe are having to instigate them, if not even greater austerity?

johnny_storm

Charity is a voluntary thing. No one should be taxed to give charity to others.

paso11

johnny_storm wrote: »

Charity is a voluntary thing. No one should be taxed to give charity to others.

Yes very true, its almost as if you end up taxing poor people in rich countries to give to rich people in poor countries.

I wonder how much of the funds actually make it to the poorer regions and not just lost in the system.

Also this smacks of the same old nonsense i.e. throw every increasing sums money at problems to fix them. We can't all be like Germany but some serious structural reforms in the peripheral countries might be a good place to start

John_Pierpoint

paso11 wrote: »

Yes very true, its almost as if you end up taxing poor people in rich countries to give to rich people in poor countries.

I wonder how much of the funds actually make it to the poorer regions and not just lost in the system.

Also this smacks of the same old nonsense i.e. throw every increasing sums money at problems to fix them. We can't all be like Germany but some serious structural reforms in the peripheral countries might be a good place to start

Ignore for the moment the money paid to rich land owners by the common agricultural policy, her is another huge chunk of the gravy train.

From the we are all in it together man, speaking about the "cohesion" fund:
“It seems particularly silly that you have money going from rich countries to build projects in other rich countries."

Perhaps that should read "we are all in it together, those with our feet and snouts in the trough" - move over and make room for me then, because we are all in it together, aren't we ?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9653643/David-Cameron-in-new-EU-cash-fight.html

I can see a spare seat for me in this French two man boat that is part of a £13 million investment. It sure beats fiddling expenses, as a method of diddling the tax payer.



[Could this be a poor man's "Eden Centre"? ]

John_Pierpoint

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20269373

Friday's dispute was over an extra 9bn Euro (£7bn; $12bn) in "emergency funding" for 2012, to cover budgets for education, infrastructure and research projects.

So then we have a row this week over who pays for next year:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20322844


If there is no deal before January, the current budget will be rolled over month by month. Any increase in spending then requires agreement between the Commission, Council and MEPs.

So we are facing a deadlock for the oncoming glorious 6 years through to 2020.

vivatifosi

A friend of mine sent me an interesting blog link yesterday:

http://www.openeuropeblog.blogspot.be/2012/11/the-long-queue-of-potential-eu-budget.html

It is about the number of countries that have said they may use a veto, but all for different things in different directions. Not looking good.

John_Pierpoint

There was an interesting interview with an Arab economist on the radio.
The topic was the driving forces behind "the Arab spring".

"We need to create 100 million new jobs within the next 30 years to employ children already born".
"We have not created 100 million new jobs in the last 100 years"
[so you in the EU think you have an unemployment problem]
"Meanwhile the EU is wasting 40% of it budget trying to stimulate 5% of its GDP".
[That 5% sounds low to me - but the new acession countries do not get their "fair" share and people like vegetable growers don't get the cash bung anyway]