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This is how the EU will spend your money

Monday, 8th September 2008

Jeffrey Titford MEP for Eastern Counties

Britain is getting a raw deal as the EU prepares to increase its budget to £116 billion, writes UKIP MEP Jeffrey Titford.

During the summer months, including the time when the European Parliament was in recess and MEPs were concentrating on their holidays, work has been going on behind the scenes on the EU’s draft budget for 2009.  The timing is quite deliberate because it guarantees a minimum of genuine scrutiny.
 
To give you some of the "highlights":  The full budget will be £116 billion, a 3.15% increase over last year.   The communications budget, which means money used by the EU to promote itself (spin, to you and me), will be £171.6 million but this is a drop in the ocean compared to the £1 billion which is in the budget for organisations that actively promote European integration including the European Movement.  Others include Climate Action Network Europe, Socialist Education International and the Coalition for the International Criminal Court.
 
However, the biggest slice of the pie goes to the European Commission, which has been allocated no less than £95 billion.  Of this, £35.75 billion goes to Agriculture and Fisheries.  If you study the figures you will find that the UK is getting a raw deal as it pays £374 million in agricultural levies to the Commission, more than any other member state.  There is £500 million for fisheries initiatives, which for those of us in the know means purchasing International Fishing Agreements with non-EU countries, which allow Spanish and Portuguese fishermen to plunder more of the world’s fishing waters.
 
Usually, these agreements are with the governments of poorer countries, which simply pocket the money and leave local fishermen high and dry.  They can’t possibly compete with sophisticated European competitors and end up losing their businesses.
 
You won’t be surprised to learn that the Commission’s Administration and EU integration budget is getting a 5% increase to £64.2 billion.  It has had rises of a similar magnitude for each of the last three years.  However, the real cost of administration is carefully hidden by the creation of a series of quangos and other bodies, which are budgeted separately, into which the Commission pushes its work.  Organisations like the European Agency for Health & Safety at Work (£10.83m) and the European Foods Safety Agency (£58.3 million).  There are too many others to list.
 
If you weren’t cheesed off enough already, the proposed 2009 contribution to European Union staff pensions, which are extremely generous, is £970 million.  The EU budget also includes a whole raft of measures that are technically illegal because they are part of the Lisbon Treaty, which has yet to be ratified and, indeed has been rejected by the brave people of Ireland.
 
Finally, the budget for the European Parliament with its extra home in Strasbourg is set at £1.25 billion.  All these figures have to be approved but don’t hold your breath about any of them being dramatically altered.  The EU is a gilded Augean Stable and there isn’t any Herculean figure able to change it.

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