Hannan: European Parliament demands a higher EU budget

Daniel Hannan writes:

Euro-MPs want Brussels to have a direct revenue stream, so that it is no longer dependent on contributions from the member nations. However, as the MEP in charge, a former French minister called Alain Lamassoure, slyly puts it: “It must not be called a ‘European tax’. Once you mix the words ‘Europe’ and ‘tax’ in the same sentence it becomes explosive.”

Explosif, Alain? Eh bien, je jamais! Perhaps European taxpayers, struggling to find savings at home, are fed up with paying more and more for Commissioners’ entertainment allowances and extra staff for MEPs.

Hannan notes, as he has done before, that though our net contribution to the EU is rising "from £6.4 billion this year to £8.3 billion in 2011-12", we should focus on the gross figure, because the money the EU spends in the UK rarely goes to things we would have funded ourselves.

Our gross contribution is rising from £14 billion to £19 billion – enough to cut council tax by half, take fourpence off income tax or pay of our Olympic debt in a single year.

In the comments, I pointed out that 42.5 million of the EU's UK spending recently went to Oxfam, an unashamedly fake charity that is campaigning for European taxation!

Of course, there are some benefits to EU membership, but they are far outweighed by the costs.