Anger as key ally of Merkel demands Britain pays £90billion to quit EU

A KEY ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel has demanded that Britain pays a £90billion EU divorce bill.

Comments by Michael Fuchs, deputy chairman of Mrs Merkel’s CDU/CSU group in the German parliament, suggest that Berlin is taking a hard line with Britain.

He was reacting to suggestions that Theresa May is willing to pay £20billion during a two-year transition, which hard-liners in the EU claim is not enough.

He said: “There is no EU position, because on the table there is a lot of payments which are going to be made in the next years, and this has to be calculated together.

“I cannot give you the real figure, the final figure, but there is a figure between 100billion [euro] and maybe 60billion, something in between these two numbers should be the right point.

“This is what the negotiators have to do at the moment and I hope that David Davis is coming up with a decent proposal, because £20billion is definitely not enough.”

Tory MEP David Campbell Bannerman said: “To demand £90billion is delusional. They never give any rationale to these demands.”

John Longworth, co-chairman of Leave Means Leave, said: “It is outrageous that the EU should be suggesting that we have to pay for everything including the kitchen sink when legally we have no obligation to pay them a penny.

“We should not allow ourselves to be led up the garden path and instead should make a clean and early exit and seize the opportunities that Brexit presents to make out country richer.”