nimh wrote:
Lord Ellpus wrote:Attacking the British rebate, negotiated by Margaret Thatcher more than 20 years ago, is the obvious strategy for Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schröder."
Well, for Schroeder at least, yes, considering Germany gets
no rebate and pays a contribution to the EU a multiple of that of the Brits ...
Nimh, here is an extract of that article I linked earlier on, regarding the rebate. If, as you imply, Schroeder indeed has some grounds for moaning about the rebate, then why does he not also demand that France and others pay more, so that they could at least match the UK and Germany as net CONTRIBUTORS.
France does VERY well out of the way that the budgets are arranged. The whole agricultural policy needs to be taken back to the drawing board, and everyone knows it.
If the budgetary arrangements had been biased AGAINST the French, do you not think that THEY would have wanted the situation rectified?
It's all in this snippet, if you are from the USA and havent got a clue as to what we are discussing here.
SNIPPET:-
"The Chirac/Schröder argument runs as follows. The rebate, they say, was negotiated when Britain was the second largest net contributor despite being only seventh wealthiest of the then 10 members. Since 1984, Britain has become a far richer country (they gloss over why we became richer, and under whom); and the EU has been joined by needier peoples from the Mediterranean and the East. Britain, they say - and the argument is loyally repeated in their media - should be treated like everyone else.
Indeed so. It is precisely because we were not being treated like the other countries that the rebate was introduced in the first place. The EU's budgetary arrangements are structurally biased against Britain, for three main reasons.
First, we are a net importer of food, which means that we pay more into the CAP than other countries. Second, our farms tend to be relatively efficient, which means that we get relatively little out of the CAP, which was tailored to suit French and Bavarian smallholders. Third, we do far more of our trade outside the EU than does any other state, and are thus especially penalised by the EU's Common External Tariff.
The British Abatement kicks in only when we are paying in more than we get out, providing for a percentage of our net contribution to be returned. It does nothing to correct the underlying bias against us. In the 20 years since Margaret Thatcher's deal, WE HAVE REMAINED THE SECOND LARGEST NET CONTRIBUTOR, paying £170 billion gross (£50 billion net) into the EU budget. A billion here, a billion there: pretty soon it starts to add up to real money.
Only once in 32 years of membership have we run a surplus. Indeed, in almost every year since we joined, WE AND THE GERMANS HAVE BEEN THE ONLY TWO STATES TO MAKE ANY NET CONTRIBUTION AT ALL.
At the same time, far more affluent nations - including Luxembourg, which has the highest per capita GDP in the EU - were receiving handsome dividends. In other words - pace, Margaret - we never really got "our money back"; all we did was slightly reduce our tribute. The sums involved are larger than many people realise. Last year, according to the Treasury, we paid £11.7 billion gross (£4.2 billion net) to the EU."
