Denis MacShane, the former Europe Minister, has accused eurosceptics today of not wanting to fund Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland’s economic recovery.
Too right. In the UK now there are elderly people who have turned down their heating to pay their Council Tax. There are people spending their life savings to pay for nursery home care. And the Chancellor is still raising new taxes.
And despite this the UK’s taxpayers are asked to stomach a £1bn attack on the £3.5bn EU rebate. Of course this rebate amount wasn’t plucked from thin air by Thatcher in 1984 when she negotiated it - it is the amount that balances the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
As many of you will know 45% 50% (thanks Spectator) of the EU’s budget goes towards the CAP and it is the main cause of African poverty that the EU is directly able to correct. If the EU is to continue to exist it should stop interfering in agricultural subsidies and allow the market to decide which crops are grown and what they cost. At the moment some foods are made artificially more expensive by the CAP.
“Charity starts at home” sounds like an old-fashioned adage but surely it is inhumane to require poor people to pay regressive taxes in order to fund another non-Third World country’s development?
December 5th, 2005 at 7:48 pm
It’s a typical Blair fudge; if we don’t make Eastern Europe pay their share of the rebate to us, under the terms of the deal we still get more money than before. But Blair is hoping he can sell it to Europe as being willing to help enlargement and make concessions, whilst not having lost much to the British electorate. Of course, he will be pillioried from both sides. The rebate might be silly, true - but not half as silly as the huge expenditure on agriculture.