UK ‘may still give aid cash to EU’

BRITAIN could continue to contribute to EU foreign aid programmes after Brexit, it emerged last night.

A position paper suggests ministers could hand over cash from the £13billion foreign aid budget to Brussels after we leave the EU.

The move will raise alarms after damning reports about waste and misuse of funds in EU programmes.

The UK contributes hundreds of millions of pounds a year to the £12billion European Development Fund.

Two years ago it emerged money had gone towards trapeze lessons, a study of coconuts, and paying for EU spin doctors in Jamaica. The paper also raises the prospect of limiting the exchange of classified information between the UK and the EU if there is no deal.

And it warns that European military technology could be undermined if there is no customs deal. But Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon denied that this was Britain using blackmail to try to secure a trade deal.

‘This isn’t a negotiating strategy,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

‘What we are doing – and everybody has asked for this – is to set out how we see the new partnership the day after Brexit. We want to fight terrorism together. It’s vital. We are not making threats.’ On foreign aid, the paper makes clear Britain shares goals with the EU on eradicating ‘extreme poverty’ and helping ‘build prosperity, peace, stability and resilience in developing countries’.

It says: ‘The UK will continue to use its international development budget through its international development partnerships, to advance global development impact or to tackle specific country problems.’

Officials said Britain could decide whether to pay into the fund – or even contribute to specific projects.

Last month Brussels’ chief negotiator Michel Barnier called on the UK to carry on funding EU foreign aid schemes for years after Brexit. He claimed Britain had made funding promises it must fulfil.