EU wants increase in budget for 2011

[Robbie]

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/EU-Showdown-Looms-Over-Demand-For-Rise-In-2011-Budget-As-Countries-Continue-To-Face-Hard-Times/Article/201010315759046?lpos=World_News_Carousel_Region_2&lid=ARTICLE_15759046_EU_Showdown_Looms_Over_Demand _For_Rise_In_2011_Budget_As_Countries_Continue_To_ Face_Hard_Times

http://news.google.co.uk/news/url?sa=t&ct2=uk%2F0_0_s_1_0_i&usg=AFQjCNE5B3UmLbMFmgdAfohxKe40Eh8_Iw&sig2=E7gBX3GW9K0oAt8kvbcAiQ&cid=0&ei=-N66TNjxFqDUjAeBoL-NAw&rt=SEARCH&vm=STANDARD&url=http%3A%2F%2***.reuters.com%2Farticle%2FidUKTR E69E2WS20101015



The European Commission (http://indepth.news.sky.com/InDepth/topic/European_Commission) is demanding an increase in its annual spending of 5.95% - despite the fact most member states are making savage cuts.
The Council of Europe - the EU's Heads of State - wants to limit spending to 2.9% but so far their pleas have fallen on deaf ears.


A spokesman for the Commission, Patrizio Fiorilli, says the rise is necessary and most of the money will be ploughed back into member states to ensure growth during a difficult economic cycle.
"Most of the increase we called for is not money that stays in Brussels because it goes to research, enterprise and infrastructure and energy projects. It's not money for Brussels, it's money for 500 million Europeans."
The EU says much of the money trickles down to member states but eurosceptics claim the EU wastes an enormous amount of cash.


Part of the rise, for instance, will pay for an 85% increase to MEPs' entertainment budget.
UKIP MEP Nigel Farage says the budget request is "monstrous".
"So much of this spending is excess. So much of it is entertaining. So much of it is supporting the personal lives of the people running the European Union and even though the Lisbon Treaty gives the EU more power there must be an argument for cost-cutting and saving somewhere."
The response from avowed eurosceptics is predictable but many of Europe's hundreds of millions of taxpayers are also aggrieved.


Francine Wooters, 59, is a grandmother-of-three from Brussels who is finding life financially difficult.
She can't understand why at a time when everyone is making sacrifices the EU is also not reigning back.


"It's just not possible. People are already stretched. We are getting by as well as we can. I can't see a future when we'll have to pay even more."


At the heart of the argument is what to do in the face of uncertain times.
The prevailing orthodoxy amongst national government is to make cuts and reduce budget deficits.
The EU argues that investment - through its budget - will help prevent a double-dip recession.
However asking for more money when people are already hard up is never going to be popular and to some seems simply greedy.
I think this is just showing the cracks in the EU, they can't even agree on matters themselves, yet they feel fit to 'govern' all the member states? With various different member states expressing concerns, I think it'll be interesting to see the stance the EU are going to take on this.

What do you think?

[-:Undertaker:-]

This is coming from the same EU which hasn't had it's accounts signed off in over a decade, with billions suspected missing.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ry462nHrwE


Ironically enough, they say its for our own benefit - I don't think so!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8068410/The-price-of-a-Belgian-apparatchik.html


http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01740/hermann-van-rompu_1740770c.jpg

Expensive: EU taxpayers are now paying £280 million to build Mr van Rompouy a lavish presidential palace in Brussels


There was some excitement over the discovery by Bruno Waterfield, The Daily Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent, that the EU President, Hermann van Rompuy, spent more than £4,000 of EU taxpayers’ money on a motorcade, to take nine members of his family to catch a holiday flight from Paris in August. Mr Waterfield also noted that the EU’s new post of president, created under the Lisbon Treaty, has a salary of £263,000 a year, more than President Obama’s.

He might also have added that EU taxpayers are now paying £280 million to build Mr van Rompouy a lavish presidential palace in Brussels – £40 million of it contributed by UK taxpayers. Not (as I observed last year) that we will notice, since at that point we were already paying £40 million to the EU every single day – even while Buckingham Palace officials were pleading, in vain, that the Queen desperately needed £40 million for urgent repairs to the Royal palaces.

The real point of the EU’s munificence towards its new figurehead is that it wants its President to have all the trappings of a figure of world importance. I fear, though, that even a grand new palace and official convoys ferrying his grandchildren to the airport will do nothing more than turn this dim little Belgian apparatchik into a dim but very expensive little Belgian apparatchik.

[GommeInc]

Well they can shuve those expectations up their over inflated bottoms. If anything they should be cancelling any costly/pointless plans like this Presidential Palace for someone no-one wants, the EU doesn't need and isn't at all important to the whole EU community - if he were to die tomorrow, no-one would care, even if they are "made" to. It's either that, or loosen ties with some countries, or reducing the amount wasted on enforcing pointless, white washed rules, or simply stop paying out. Besides, has anyone even seen the accounts for the EU? For all we know, they've got enough money or some have gone missing, like Undertaker has mentioned :P

[Chippiewill]

It's because the EU has no liability, there are no repercussions for the EU. Members of the EU can't pull out because of trade, therefore the EU can demand any amount.

[GommeInc]

It's because the EU has no liability, there are no repercussions for the EU. Members of the EU can't pull out because of trade, therefore the EU can demand any amount.
Unfortunately. The EU only ever worked sensibly when it was just about trade agreements.