UK ‘may have to wait 40 years’ for EU bank billions

BREXIT campaigners were outraged yesterday after the European Investment Bank said Britain may have to wait up to 40 years to get billions of pounds of its money back.

Alexander Stubb, vicepresident of the European Union bank, forecast the UK would get back the £3billion it had paid in since it joined the EU in 1973 – but not in full until at least 2054.

He also suggested Britain could potentially be on the hook for another £30 billion of liabilities, which it had not paid in to the bank but represents a “guarantee that if things go sour” with projects, the UK will pay.

Conservative MP Charlie Elphicke said: “The sheer hypocrisy of Brussels is breathtaking.

“One moment they demand vast sums of cash for us leaving, then the next they tell us we’ll have to wait decades for the money they owe.

Offensive

“The UK has been a major net contributor to the EU, paying billions into Brussels’ coffers.

“Taxpayers shouldn’t have to wait for the EU to sort out their accounts.”

Tory MP and former Cabinet minister John Redwood said: “It would be better if the EIB paid us back.

“But if they’re going to keep our capital, then they will have to make sure that Britain gets its full share of loans from the bank we are still paying for.”

The Luxembourg-based EIB is owned by EU member states and the UK is a 16 per cent shareholder.

The bank uses its members’ capital to make lowinterest rate loans for infrastructure projects in member states, including about £6 billion a year in Britain.

Former Finnish PM Mr Stubb said countries could be in the EIB only if they belong to the EU, which Britain would not after 2019.

But the structure of the loans meant Britain could wait until at least 2054 to get in full the £3billion it had paid into the EIB since 1973.

“We are a bank which provides for financial instruments for very long periods so the UK will be married to the EIB at least up to 2054,” Mr Stubb told the BBC.

He denied the EIB was trying to punish the UK, amid reports that British projects were in danger of folding because the EU bank was taking so long to agree new loans, even though Britain remains in the EU.

He insisted he wanted the UK to succeed: “I have a British heart pumping.

“I am married to a Brit, my children have dual nationality and I think Brexit is one of the biggest travesties of the modern era.

“So I will do everything in my power to alleviate the pain, but the economic facts are such that there are no winners in Brexit – apart from perhaps a few lawyers.

“No one in the EIB is out to punish the UK.”

Conservative MEP David Campbell Bannerman said: “The behaviour of the EIB and its director is simply offensive, and totally contemptuous of democracy.”

BILLIONS of euros, money from British taxpayers, is sitting in the European Investment Bank (EIB) in which the UK is a shareholder, as are all EU member states. Come Brexit we will get that back right? It’s easily done, a simple money transfer.

Wrong. Former prime minister of Finland Alexander Stubb, now vicepresident of the bank, says that this vast sum – €3.5billion (£3.1billion) will not be fully repaid until 2054, that is 37 years in the future. He denies this is intended to punish Britain but he does describe Brexit as a “travesty”.

Imagine if you attempted to withdraw your own money from a bank account. You would expect to receive it in hours. We are all used to transfers being instantaneous these days. But imagine if the response was, “Yes you’ll get it back but we’re afraid you’ll have to wait about 40 years.”

One of the most unappealing aspects of the EU has always been the way in which it revels in complexity and bureaucracy. Britain has been repeatedly told that the task of extricating itself from the grip of Brussels is so complicated that it is not worth attempting. Endless obstacles and hold-ups have been thrust in the path of the negotiators.

But this complexity is part of the EU’s inherent weakness: overblown and strangling itself with its own red tape.

The EIB has no excuse for this intransigence. Just give us our cash back.