The cost of EU budget cut? £16BILLION kickbacks to our neighbours!

BRITAIN’S European Union neighbours were paid £16BILLION – to persuade them to back budget CUTS, it’s been revealed.

The historic £30bn cuts package, agreed in Brussels last month, will see EU payments reduced from £800bn for 2007-13 to £770bn for 2014-20.

It’s the first time the budget has been slashed in its 56-year history.

Under the terms of the deal, Britain will continue to receive an annual £3.6bn rebate, first negotiated by Margaret Thatcher in the Eighties.

However, a leaked EU document has also revealed the deal included “additional payments” to individual member states to encourage them to agree to the overall arrangement.

The paperwork lists 25 of the 27 EU member states as receiving additional payments, with Britain – which gets its existing rebate – and Poland the exceptions.

France was awarded £173m for Mayotte, a small island off the east coast of Africa, as well as an extra £870m for “rural development”.

Spain received £2bn, while Portugal benefitted from £870m, Belgium £115m, Italy £2.6bn and Luxembourg – which is the wealthiest EU member state – £17m.

Prime Minister David Cameron, who along with German chancellor Angela Merkel fought hard to win support for the reduced budget, has claimed Britain can be “proud” of the deal.

But critics say such “horse-trading and special pleading” has resulted in an “economically irrational and ineffective” EU budget.

Pawel Swidlicki, a research analyst at the Open Europe Think Tank, said: “David Cameron deserves credit for mustering an alliance in favour of an EU budget cut. However, these examples illustrate the ridiculous extent of horse-trading and special pleading on the part of many member states, which results in an economically irrational and ineffective EU budget.

“Arguably, the net effect is to hamper growth rather than boost it.”