EU to hit Britain with big Brexit bill
BELGIUM: Britain will be presented with a £50 billion ‘‘exit bill’’ by the European Union as soon as Prime Minister Theresa May triggers Article 50, Brussels’ chief negotiator is warning.
Michel Barnier, the EU’S chief Brexit negotiator, has told his colleagues that Britain must keep paying ‘‘tens of billions’’ annually into the EU budget until 2020. The bill would include its share of outstanding pensions liabilities, loan guarantees and spending on British-based projects.
The demands, which came as May held meetings with EU leaders before being excluded from a dinner at an EU summit, were dismissed by senior Conservatives, who rejected the idea of paying such a bill. Others shrugged off the demands and claimed they were simply the EU’S opening position in an attempted negotiation.
Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary and Leave campaigner, said the figure was is a ‘‘dreadful joke’’ and that the true figure would be ‘‘peanuts’’.
Britain’s EU ambassador was also accused of being a ‘‘gloomy pessimist’’ after telling the prime minister that Brexit would take a decade.
Conservatives raised questions about the position of Sir Ivan Rogers - who helped to negotiate former prime minister David Cameron’s EU deal ahead of the Brexit referendum - and said he was ‘‘completely out of his comfort zone’’, after he warned that a trade deal might not be completed until the mid-2020s, despite those claims later being contradicted by the European Commission.
It was reported yesterday that Barnier, who has previously suggested that the Brexit negotiations should be conducted in French, had told a number of EU leaders about his plans for a £50b bill for Britain.
Tomas Prouza, the Czech Republic’s Europe minister, told Sky News: ‘‘I understand why the Eurosceptics call it an exit fee. But this is agreeing the bills that the UK has already agreed to pay.’’
When asked whether British taxpayers should expect a bill worth tens of billions of pounds, Prouza said: ‘‘Definitely. This is what the UK has already committed to pay, and we would expect that the UK would honour its commitments ... it will be one of the first issues coming up on the table.’’
Duncan Smith said: ‘‘It’s playing to the gallery to try and persuade Britain to beg for mercy. We will not.
‘‘This is based on their fevered imagination, not reality.’’
Arriving in Brussels, May said: ‘‘We will be leaving the EU, and we want that to be as smooth and an orderly process as possible. It’s not just in our interests, it’s in the interest of the rest of Europe as well.’’
Barnier has been criticised in recent weeks after appearing to dismiss Britain’s Brexit secretary David Davis in a series of tweets after their first meeting in Brussels. He described the meeting as a ‘‘courtesy visit’’ and said he told Davis there would be ‘‘no negotiation’’ before May triggers Article 50.
Downing Street said Britain would meet its obligations while it remained a member of the EU, but any financial settlement after that would be a matter for negotiation.
‘‘Decisions on how UK taxpayers’ money is spent will be decisions for the UK to take moving forward,’’ a Number 10 source said. ‘‘There’s a whole range of complex issues that will need to be resolved in the negotiations.
‘‘One of the issues that will be for discussion and negotiation is the EU budget contribution and things like that. The important thing is that once we have left, the UK Government will make decisions on how taxpayers’ money is spent.’’
- Telegraph Group