After a marathon overnight summit, leaders of the 27 member states agreed to an historic EU budget. But historic for the wrong reasons. For the first time, the 7 year Multiannual Financial Framework, more commonly known as the EU’s budget, will be cut.
The agreed amount will be 960bn euros, down from an original proposal of 1.025tn euros. The manner in which these cuts were achieved speaks volumes amount the narrowness of political ambition from some quarters, most significantly from Tory backbenchers.
The MFF is better thought of as a spending limit than as an actual sum of money, and the big losers this time around are cross-border infrastructure projects, and European wide initiatives such as Erasmus, which give young people in the UK the chance to see that they can go to work beyond their own backyard.
With the new limit agreed, these all face the cut. But what stays are pork barrel projects handed out in the small hours of Saturday morning by EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy, in an effort to cobble together enough political support from some EU leaders to agree to the overall slash in spending.
Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo, of bow tie wearing fame, walked into the press bar about half three to have a sandwich, and predicted many hours of negotiation ahead. Now it’s clear what those hours have bought us.
So surely this is a victory for the backbench Tory Europhobes who, just before Christmas, clamoured for an overall reduction in EU spending. They got exactly what they wanted. They voted in the Commons for a cut, and forced the Prime Minister’s hand. They won the first, and surely they won the latter?
Wrong. Because emerging out of the fine print of these negotiations, is the confusing fact that although overall spending will decrease, the UK’s contribution to the EU over the next seven years will rise, to foot the bill for expansion and accession that the government has so loudly championed.
The right wing press in the UK have largely ignored this. And those Europhobe politicians who have made a fuss over it have pointed to it as yet another example of how the EU is taking Britain for a ride.
But I see it somewhat differently. There are still many in the Conservative party who, rather than be out and out Eurosceptics, profess to want reform of the EU and Britain’s role within it – in effect, to craft a more modern, healthier relationship with the continent. These same Tories cried slavishly for a cut in the budget, taking an absolutist position (along with Labour), which left the PM with no room for negotiation.
And the result has been a cut in overall spending. But a cut achieved by promising British taxpayers money for wasteful pork barrel projects in individual member states.
If these politicians had wanted real reform, they would have focused on rationalizing EU spending, by examining which projects really were part of the Union’s competencies; such as Erasmus and the Connecting Europe rail programme; and which projects, such as the many promised by Rompuy, that have simply been used to buy compliance to an absolutist British agenda, and has served only to defeat the Eurosceptics’ own aims.
By leaving David Cameron with no room for manouevre, Tory Eurosceptics have cost Britain more money, and with less value in return. But here’s betting that before long they will be raging about Brussels raking in more cash from hardworking Brits.
Clearly, these Tories will have their cake and eat it too.
l’UE
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