Brussels demands bigger budget… even though EU is getting smaller

BRUSSELS sparked anger yesterday by demanding a huge budget increase – despite Brexit leaving a huge hole in the bloc’s finances.

Leaders of member nations accused the EU of ‘unacceptable’ behaviour for significantly increasing long-term spending even though Britain, the second largest contributor, is leaving.

The European Commission ignored warnings of the need for belt-tightening, calling for member states to commit to long-term spending of £1.12trillion – a 9 per cent increase on the previous budget.

Danish PM Lars Rasmussen led complaints as he said: ‘A smaller EU should mean a smaller budget. The EU Commission just presented an EU budget the size of 28 member states. But we are only 27 member states to finance it.’

Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte said the proposals were ‘not acceptable’.

Financial commitments in the current sevenyear budget plan, which the UK will partially cover after Brexit through the ‘divorce bill’, stand at around £955billion. The next budget – for which this was the first draft – will kick in at the end of Britain’s planned post-Brexit transition period in 2021 and last until 2027.