Labour’s economic credibility goes on tour to Brussels

Bill Cash’s amendment to the EU budget bill may not have been the victory that the signatories to Douglas Carswell’s more incendiary effort hoped for, but it is significant. It is exactly in line with government policy that seeks to cap the EU budget and search for cuts. As Treasury Minister Justine Greening put it in the debate last night:

‘I will not hide from the House the Government’s frustration that some of our partners – and those in EU institutions – do not seem to understand how bizarre it is, when national budgets are under such extraordinary pressure, that the EU should be immune from that.’

The EU Commission proposes a rise of 6 percent, well above inflation, whilst the EU parliament’s budget committee called for a 2.9 percent increase There is also the small matter of the EU’s annual running costs, which have increased by 4.4 percent. Against this excess is Britain’s surrendered budget rebate, the non-agricultural tranche of which is being backdated to 2004 this year.