Now Brussels demands an extra £384m from UK to tackle migrant crisis
BRITAIN could be forced to hand an extra £384million to Brussels to pay for the migrant crisis.
The European Parliament’s budget committee voted to increase the budget by nearly £3billion yesterday in a decision that risks undermining David Cameron’s hard-fought freeze on EU spending.
MEPs acted after Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, warned that the refugee crisis could ‘cause tectonic changes in the European political landscape’. More than 700,000 migrants fleeing the Middle East have flowed into Europe already this year.
But Eurosceptics accused Brussels of using the crisis to mount a ‘power grab’ with the ‘profligate’ budget increase. The budget will now be voted on by EU member states and requires a majority – but the UK has no power to veto it.
The Prime Minister has an agreement from the European Commission that overall spending should not increase by 2020. So if the budget rise goes ahead this year, cuts would be needed in future if Brussels is to uphold the cap. But critics said that this agreement has now ‘been shown to be a sham’.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, told MEPs on Tuesday that the current budget of £109billion was ‘ too small’ and accused national governments of failing to deliver on their promise to boost aid to deal with the refugee crisis. The European Parliament voted to increase spending to £112billion next year.
Conservative and Ukip MEPs voted against the proposed increase and politicians back home expressed anger at the plans.
Sir William Cash, the Tory chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, said: ‘The Prime Minister will have to reassure us that there is no chance of them unpicking the budget deal to pay for this migrant crisis. The simple fact is that we currently have very little say over key decisions that impact our lives. We need to take back control.’
Richard Ashworth, Tory budget spokesman in the European Parliament, said: ‘We do have major priorities that we should respond to such as the migration crisis, but we need better reprioritisation ... This is not the right time for the European Parliament to go back to governments and ask for more money. Instead, we need to take some tough decisions about our priorities.’
Ashley Fox, leader of the Conservatives in the European Parliament, added: ‘We will continue to reject these calls by MEPs for excessive and profligate budgetary increases.’
Ukip tabled amendments calling for a cut in MEPs’ pay, travel perks and ‘vanity’ projects such as the European Parliament’s TV channel. But all of its 142 attempts to cut the budget failed.
Ukip MEP and budgetary control committee member Jonathan Arnott said: ‘This is a major defeat for Cameron who boasted of getting an agreement to cut the budget. This has been shown to be a sham.’
Ukip deputy leader Paul Nuttall accused Brussels of using the refugee crisis to ‘gain more power’, adding: ‘Europhiles are now demanding more taxpayers’ money to fund the passage of economic migrants from the Middle East. British taxpayers should not be tapped for more money to encourage wage compression and an impending clash of civilisation in Europe.’
The budget will be a contentious subject ahead of Britain’s renegotiation of its EU membership and the in-out referendum, which will be held by the end of 2017.
Eurosceptics will seize on any signal that the bloc plans to spend more as a reason to leave. A spokesman for the Treasury said last night: ‘The PM’s multi-year EU budget deal achieved the first real terms cut to the overall seven-year budget and continues to bring discipline to annual EU spend. The position of EU governments delivers on that deal and in the upcoming negotiations with the European Parliament we will continue to argue for maximum budget restraint.’
At least three migrants drowned yesterday and the Greek coastguard rescued 242 others when their wooden boat sank north of the island of Lesbos.