UK can’t afford EU virus fund
THE UK’s chief negotiator, David Frost, has reiterated Downing Street’s stance that Britain would refuse to extend the Brexit transition beyond December 31, even if Brussels asked for a delay.
The UK government has been deflecting mounting calls to agree to an extension to the Brexit transition, slated to end on December 31, with Downing Street basing its refusal to comply in part on concerns that it would entail “massive” payments to the EU as part of Covid-19 relief aid.
According to a source, paying into an EU budget inflated by the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic was “clearly not in the national interest”.
On April 15, EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen said the next seven-year EU budget should offer a basis for European economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, adding that the budget needed to “be completely different than how normally European budgets work”, including paying larger grants in the first few years of the seven-year cycle.
“For the British government to agree to pay into the EU’s Covid-19 budget would be political suicide,” says ex-member of the European Parliament Nick Griffin, adding that “there simply will not be the money for Britain
to hand to Brussels, even if Prime Minister Boris Johnson surrendered to the EU’s outrageous demands”, due to the “economic, social and health catastrophe” amid corona lockdown.
Professor of Economic Law at the University of Bristol Law School, Albert Sanchez-Graells, meanwhile, believes that the UK’s potential contribution to the EU budget in case of an extension to the transition period “needs to be negotiated and agreed by both parties in the context of the Joint Committee”.
Presumably, the UK’s contribution would be commensurate to the benefits of the extension to the UK and its participation in EU programmes to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 across the EU economy.
According to Chris Stafford, a doctoral researcher at the University of
Nottingham in the Politics and International Relations Department, there is no official source that suggests if the UK will subsidise the EU’s Covid19 response while it remains in the transition period, how much it would have to contribute and what benefits it may gain from doing so.
“My suspicion would be that this is still an attempt by the government to not upset their Brexit-supporting voters, rather than a genuine interest in the national interest. Even with the pandemic, they worry that delaying the UK’s full departure from the EU might lose them support.
“Extending the transition period may be unpopular with some voters, and so would having to pay into the EU’s coronavirus fund, regardless of whether or not this may be beneficial to do,” Stafford said.