EU FINANCIAL TAX: UK WILL PAY TWO THIRDS OF TOTAL

There is a lot more at stake for Britain in the EU’s
difficulties than just jingoistic advantage

With a decade gone in which EU regulations alone have cost Britain £174 billion, EU spending madness has landed the eurozone in the mess that was always coming. Without Britain’s help, Angela Merkel will struggle to even carry the German people with her – let alone get her way with the Mediterranean deficit cheats, and fat folks in Brussels. As a major loser in the European Project – and a country whose wisdom kept it clear of the federalist hubris – the UK is in an excellent position to exact a price for such cooperation.

In an article for Conservative Home, Mats Persson of the Open Europe website argues that this “is also a once-in-a-decade opportunity for Cameron… Treaty changes – or any substantial changes that require unanimity in the EU – could actually be good news for the UK. It would finally present a British Government with real leverage in negotiations with EU partners: in return for allowing the eurozone to integrate further, the UK should ask for any of a number of things in return, including the repatriation of powers and a more sensible EU budget.”

Well, you read it here first. But I see little sign that the ToryDem Coalition realises this.

The ‘Tory’ end of it does in private….of that you can be sure. But like Admiral Lord Nelson, William Hague keeps putting that telescope up to his blind eye. This may be a LibDem compromise too far by the Cameroons: with a hundred other fiscal problems, the Government can ill afford to look such a gift horse in the mouth.

To put some scale onto how much pushing for EU reform could earn us, Chancellor Merkel has called for a “global” tax on financial transactions to raise €321 billion a year Europe-wide – €204 billion of which would come from Britain, with €43 billion from Germany and just €17 billion from France.

This is outrageously unfair -and on top of the new financial regulations being pushed through by the Franco-German axis, an obvious smash and grab raid.

The Slog is not and never has been a loony anti-Europe site. But having just struggled to save £6.2 billion (and seen it wiped out by an £8 billion EU balancing fund contribution) if the Coalition allows Britain to be stung for a staggering €204 billion then UK voters will find it hard to forgive those who created it.