UK’s £15bn threat to EU over Ulster talks

SEETHING Eurocrats last night accused Britain of acting like ‘toddlers’ after No10 drew up plans to withhold £15billion in funding to the bloc.

Amid increasingly hostile relations with Brussels, a leaked memo yesterday revealed the Government is working on proposals to cut ties with three EU research programmes.

Ministers believe EU officials are stalling the UK’s participation in the bloc’s flagship science projects so they can be used as leverage over Northern Ireland.

Technical talks over the Northern Ireland protocol, which effectively leaves the province at the mercy of EU red tape, restart later today. But last night EU officials were engaged in a bitter war of words with Downing Street over the threat to pull out of the bloc’s £77billion scientific, satellite and nuclear programmes.

An EU diplomat dismissed that such a threat would hold any sway over the Northern Ireland talks. ‘It seems the UK is always testing our limits, much in the same way that toddlers do,’ the source said.

The memo suggests ministers plan to walk away from EU research programmes Horizon Europe, Copernicus and Euratom, if no solution to Northern Ireland is found. British taxpayers are set to pay £2.1billion a year to stay in the seven-year programme as agreed under the Brexit deal.

Funds are then used for research projects at British universities.

According to the memo, reported by The Sunday Telegraph, government departments have been told to prepare ‘alternatives to each programme’. Maros Sefcovic, the European Commission’s Brexit enforcer, will hold talks with Brexit minister Lord Frost on Friday after a week of discussions.

Last week he threatened a possible trade war if the UK triggered Article 16, a clause in the Northern Ireland protocol that allows one side to suspend the pact.

The European Commission declined to comment.