EU OWES BRITAIN BILLIONS
BRUSSELS could owe Britain billions of pounds in EU assets, a former Tory Cabinet minister said last night.
Iain Duncan Smith, a leading figure in the crusade for Britain to quit the EU, hit back at demands for a Brexit divorce settlement of up to £60billion by pointing out that UK taxpayers have ploughed vast sums into the bloc over the past four decades.
“We should stop listening to this nonsense about what we should pay them and look into what they owe us,” the senior MP said.
His blistering intervention in the debate comes just a day before Theresa May is due to formally
begin the Brexit process. An historic letter from the Prime Minister requesting the activation of the EU’s Article 50 exit process is due to be hand delivered to EU Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels tomorrow.
The move will trigger months of wrangling with senior Eurocrats over the exit deal.
The chief Brexit negotiator for the EU provoked fury yesterday by warning of “severe consequences” if Britain quits without a deal.
Michel Barnier raised the spectre of chaos at airports and Dover should talks break down without agreement.
The Frenchman even claimed UK energy supplies could be hit by “the suspension of the delivery of nuclear material” across the Channel.
And he insisted that Britain must agree to huge payments to Brussels before talks on a trade deal can begin. Mr Duncan Smith said: “When two companies go their separate ways they always work out what the assets are and divide them up between them.
“I think it is only reasonable that we should do the same.”
The former work and pensions secretary added: “I have seen estimates suggesting we have invested around half a trillion pounds in the EU over the years.
“On top of that, there are intellectual property rights and buildings.
“I think it’s high time we stop this listening to what the EU says about what we owe them – it is nonsense.
“It would be fine by me for us to walk away without paying a penny, but perhaps we should look into the assets because it will amount to a considerable sum.”
Other Brexit supporters were more sceptical about Britain’s chances of reclaiming cash from
Brussels. They pointed to recent advice from the House of Lords suggesting the UK is under no obligation to pay a penny in a divorce settlement and suggested the same would apply to Brussels in return.
Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg said: “I think we neither owe nor are owed any money.”
Former Tory minister John Redwood said: “Just as there is no legal power to impose payments on us, there is no legal power for us to make them pay.”
Ukip MEP Gerard Batten said: “We don’t owe them a penny. We are not under any legal obligation to pay them anything, and the same applies to them.
“But perhaps we could be looking into reclaiming some of the money we have invested in the European Investment Bank, which could be up to £10billion.”
A Brussels-based think tank recently estimated that Britain could be owed around £50billion as a share of EU assets totalling £130billion.
Bruegel, an independent research organisation, used the EU’s annual accounts to put a scale on the bloc’s assets. A separate analysis of the EU’s property portfolio alone estimated that Britain could claim a £4.5billion share from the buildings and other assets including tons of computer equipment and even a string of space satellites.
The most expensive item on the list of nearly 100 items was the towering Berlaymont office building in Brussels with the book value given as £294million.
Other Brussels property included the Madou Tower and the Charlemagne Building valued at £87million and £80million respectively for buildings and land. Europe House, the European Commission’s London headquarters in Westminster, was valued at £13.7million.
Whitehall officials are understood to have been discreetly compiling estimates of a potential British share of EU assets. Britain has been one of the biggest annual contributors to the Brussels budget ever since joining the European Economic Community in 1973. Theresa May has repeatedly said that Britain will stand by its outstanding financial obligations to Brussels while insisting that the days of British taxpayers paying “huge sums” to Brussels every year are over.
EU officials have declined to comment on the issue of potential liabilities. But last week, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker confirmed that Britain’s exit payment could be around £50billion.
Brexit Secretary David Davis last night told a special BBC1 Question Time: “We will of course meet our international obligations – but we would expect our rights to be respected too.”