To compensate for its economy performing better than other EU countries since 1995, the UK will have to make a top-up payment on December 1 representing almost a fifth of the country’s net contribution last year. France, meanwhile, will receive a €1bn rebate, according to Brussels calculations seen by the Financial Times.
The one-off bill will infuriate eurosceptic MPs at an awkward moment for the prime minister, who is wrestling with strong anti-EU currents in British politics that are buffeting his party and prompting a rethink of the UK’s place in Europe.
I did wonder if there was some rationale to this based on a treaty obligation rather than the EU just thinking of a number in that peculiar way some continentals have.
The Telegraph thinks that it has to do with counting our financial services area together with some strange imputed accounting for largely illegal areas of the ‘Black Economy’ – apparently booming drugs, prostitution and smuggling!
Time to scrape my eyebrows off the ceiling.