Well what do you know?

The Court of Auditors, the EU's own institution, has refused to pass those accounts for the twentieth year running.

The European Union’s auditors have estimated that one in 20 payments made from the EU’s 2013 budget was affected by error. The auditors put the overall error rate for payments at 4.7%, marginally down on the 2012 budget when its estimate was 4.8%.

More  details on the EUObserver:

Almost €7 billion of the EU budget was illegally spent in 2013, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) revealed on Wednesday (5 November), as it declined to sign off EU spending for the 20th consecutive year.

Although the error rate of misspent funds fell fractionally to 4.7 per cent from 4.8 per cent in 2012, this is still well above the 2 per cent threshold under which ECA could classify payments as error-free. Spending on administration was the only part of the budget to fall within the threshold, with an estimated 1 per cent error rate.

In total, EU spending in 2013 reached €148.5 billion.

Is this going to make the slightest difference to the people who have mis-spent our money consistently? Or to the ever higher sums that are demanded from the long-suffering taxpayer? Not on your life.

There will be more of this

What with Popes resigning for the first time in nearly 600 years and kings being found after nearly 430 years as well as the horse meat scandal that the Boss is dealing with superlatively well, little attention is being paid to the EU Budget or for the ongoing shenanigans around it. When I say little, I mean less than usual and I do not blame anyone. From my perspective, all the above stories are more interesting.

We all know that the Budget is not really being cut merely the growth is slowing down, that our contribution will probably go up and that the European Parliament has still to vote on it and might actually do so in a secret ballot.

There is another aspect of the whole story and I was reminded of it and I was reminded of it when, the other evening I did not sprint across the kitchen fast enough in order to switch off the radio, thus having to listen to the Prime Minister's dulcet tones telling me that his achievement demonstrated that "with allies we could reform aspects of the EU". Like hell, we can, though I, then recalled that several people who ought to know better and organizations who are supposed to be on our side have been pronouncing in a similar portentous way.

This, they are saying, can be achieved if we threaten to leave the EU (which we have not done); we can deal with the others if we just take the firm line (which is exactly what anybody decides it is).

There will be a great deal more of it: phony victories, faux vetoes, elusive alliances to achieve non-existent reforms. All grist to the mill to persuade the populace to vote for staying in when we get that referendum.

And it all goes marching on

Sometimes it is easy to forget that no matter what might be mouldering in politics or the grave, the EU goes marching on, though I have doubts whether it has a soul.

So, here are a couple of items that might be of interest to some people. The 2010 Budget is going through the European Parliament. Let us note, in parenthesis, the utterly lunatic character of the system in which the Budget is not signed off till a couple of years after the money had been spent.

Anyway, it seems that some MEPs, in particular Jan Mulder a Dutch Liberal MEP, quaintly described by the European Voice, as "a veteran of the [budgetary control] committee", are urging their colleagues not to grant discharge to the budget. And suppose they don't? Do we get the money back? I think not. In any case, it seems unlikely that the discharge will not be granted. The Toy Parliament has never quibbled about a few billions being lost or mis-spent here and there.

Meanwhile the European Commission is looking to a tightening up of the posting-of-workers law to ensure that unions cannot complain about the fact that basic Single Market rules collide with certain assumptions about their rights, such as the right to strike. We have moved some way from that glorious moment when the TUC Congress was promised by, I believe, no less a person than Jacques Delors that the Thatcherite reforms will be rolled back.

Good to know

Lord Stoddart of Swindon asked a very pertinent question:

What is the extent of unused funds held by the European Union; and why they are not being returned to member states in proportion to their contribution to the European Union budget?

Surely, the answer is that any surplus is handed over to our glorious MEPs to do what they will. But no.

Any surplus from one year's European Union (EU) budget is returned to member states in the following year. This serves to reduce the amount required from a member state to fund the following year's budget, in line with its share of gross national income-based contributions.

The surplus from the 2010 EU budget amounts to €4.539 billion (£3.907 billion) and will reduce the UK contribution to the 2011 EU budget by €639 million (£550 million).

Of course, that is chicken feed in relation to our deficit but it would be good to know what happens to the money.

Questions asked in the Lords

It is time to catch up with some of what has been going on in the Lords. On Thursday, April 28 there were two Starred Questions that are of some relevance to the subjects this blog discusses.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch asked:

Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the contribution by the European Union and its predecessors to peace in Europe compared with that of NATO.

A fair question, given the number of times we have been told that the EU and its various predecessors have been crucial to the keeping of the peace in "Europe". Of course, even that is disingenuous: in the eastern and south-eastern parts of Europe peace was conspicuously absent in the decades after the Second World War. But let that pass.

Lord Howell's reply was also disingenous:

My Lords, both the European Union and NATO have made invaluable and complementary contributions to peace in Europe. We do not consider it appropriate to compare the two as they serve different functions. While NATO has ensured, and continues to ensure, our security, there is more to peace than just security. It requires stability, shared values, economic development and political co-operation. The European Union has contributed that. We firmly intend to remain an active and committed member of both.

The subsequent debate covered all the usual points, including role of NATO troops, specifically of American ones, the EU's helplessness when it comes to military matters and its lack of that democracy it is supposed to support in member states.

One has to feel some admiration for Lord Howell who is rather knowledgeable but has to navigate all those shoals, be courteous to everyone (this is not the Lower House, after all) and not step beyond government policy. In fact, the only speaker he seems to have been annoyed by was Lord Dykes, who has appeared on this blog a few times in the past. One cannot really blame Lord Howell.

A few minutes afterwards Lord Campbell of Alloway asked

Her Majesty's Government what proportion of the United Kingdom contribution to the European Union Budget has been signed off by the Court of Auditors over the last 16 years.

Indeed, we all know the answer to that and it is a round number. Lord Campbell asks questions about this periodically, hoping, one assumes, to get some kind of a sensible answer out of whichever governmen happens to be around. He has failed again. This was Lord Sassoon's reply:

My Lords, the UK contributes to the EU budget as a whole, not to individual spending programmes. Therefore, data on UK contributions to the EU budget not signed off by the Court of Auditors are unavailable. However, the recurrent failure to achieve a positive audit opinion from the court on EU's accounts is unacceptable. The Government set out recommendations to improve EU financial management and transparency at ECOFIN in February this year.

Well now, isn't that exciting news? More recommendations. One wonders whether they will be taken up and what will happen with the next EU budget.

To be fair to noble peers, this is a subject they can get quite angry about, presumbly because many of them are businessmen and well aware of the anomaly of a budget that is routinely, year after year, is thrown out by the auditors. What would be the fate of a business of any size to whom this happened?

The most interesting question came from the Countess of Mar, who rarely gets involved in debates on matters European:

My Lords, I recall some 20 years ago the late Lord Bruce of Donington asking very much the same questions repeatedly. Can the Minister say why it is taking so long to resolve this problem?

How very true. We all recall Lord Bruce of Donington, who always had more information in his hands than whichever Minister was replying, asking those questions and, no, nothing much has been done about it since.

According to Lord Sassoon, this is all because of the previous government giving "away a substantial part of the UK's abatement and signed on to a financial perspective that set a course of significantly increasing EU expenditure". That's as may be but the debate was about the Court of Auditors and the EU budget not being signed off, which has been going on for a slightly longer period than the previous government had been in office. Indeed, Lord Bruce's questions go back, to my certain knowledge to John Major's government and, quite possibly, beyond.

Groundhog day

The 2012 draft EU budget has been announced and ... well, let's see if you can guess ... yes it is going up by 4.9 per cent. Well, well, well.

The draft budget for 2012 represents € 132.7 bn in payments amounting to a 4.9 % increase on 2011. Commitments amount to €147.4bn (+3.7%). The key objective of the 2012 Draft Budget is to fully support the European economy and EU citizens.

For austerity

The draft budget 2012 endeavours to be in tune with the current austerity climate at national level. The Commission has made a particular effort and opted for a freeze of its administrative expenditure for 2012 i.e. a 0.0% increase compared to the 2011 budget. This has been achieved by significantly reducing expenditure linked to buildings, information and communication technology, studies, publications, missions, conferences and meetings. Furthermore, for the third year in a row, the Commission does not request any additional new post.

Also, in drawing up next year's draft budget, the Commission endeavoured to identify programmes or initiatives that are not performing. The Development Cooperation Instrument has been reduced by €70.7 million as a result of its performance assessment. The Industrialised Countries Instrument has seen a reduction of €14.5 million due to high level of de-commitments in 2007 and low performance and delay in adoption of the new legal base. GALILEO funding has been reduced by €24.9 million (N.B. figures in commitments appropriations). "We owe it to the European taxpayer, says Commissioner Lewandowski: savings must include looking seriously at what we are doing and asking ourselves whether everything we do brings genuine benefit to the whole of Europe!"

A British government spokesman has announced that this would not be acceptable. Dutch and French comments were along similar lines.

As it happens all that gobbledy-gook about it being "a declaration of war against Downing Street" as Bruno Waterfield puts it in the Telegraph is just that, gobbledy-gook: Cameron went along with what Germany and France wanted. He did not lead any sort of an opposition except in the feverish imagination of British hacks.

What will the British taxpayer be faced with if the draft is accepted? Another £682 million on top of what we are paying already. And, it is all so well spent. (Not that I am particularly surprised that aid money is wasted. Possibly whatever does not get to the poor countries can be said not to do any actual harm by funding bloodthirsty kleptocrats.)

What will the Boy-King do this time?

Meanwhile

Readers of this blog will not be surprised to learn the information in this article though they might be surprised that it appeared in yesterday's Independent, a newspaper that is not known for its criticism of Britain's membership of the European Union.

The UK's payments to the European Union almost doubled in 2010, according to the latest data issued yesterday by the Office for National Statistics – soaring to £230 for every household in the country.

The ONS said yesterday that the net transfer of funds from Britain to EU institutions rose from £5.3bn in 2009 to £9.2bn in 2010, a jump of almost £4bn, or 74 per cent – enough to avoid the recent rise in national insurance or the new 50p rate of tax. The UK's contributions to the EU are at their highest level ever, and one of the very few areas of public spending set to increase in coming years despite the cutbacks being made across Britain.

Nice to have those official figures, though we know that HMG will not have a cost/benefit analysis of the country's membership of the EU because, as so many Ministers have pointed out over the years, the benefits are too obvious to need enumeration. Or words to that effect.

One of those benefits is supposed to be trade though why we should lose that if we were outside the EU is a mystery nobody has been able to solve. On the other hand, if we were outside it we might decide not to trade with the rest of that shower anyway.

The ONS also revealed that the UK's trade deficit with the EU ballooned from £14.3bn to £46.6bn last year.

The UK Exchequer is further exposed to rescuing distressed members of the eurozone via a small European Commission fund and Britain's contributions to the IMF, which is also helping fund eurozone bailouts. In all, this could amount to around £10bn in rescue loans.

Well, goodness me, those benefits are all too obvious, are they not?

Nothing like a healthily growing backlash

Bruno Waterfield, the Telegraph's hack in Brussels, tells us that there is a growing backlash against perks for EU officials. Fury, he informs us, is spreading. Well, good for fury, say I. And, indeed, for backlash. Maybe I shall call my next two cats Fury and Backlash. I have no doubt they will grow and spread all over the house. But let's be practical. Exactly, what are those terrible twins, Fury and Backlash going to do? Here are a few indications:

Despite being paid six figure salaries, 1,962 of EU's most senior civil servants have been allowed to join a "flexitime" scheme, originally meant for lower paid secretarial staff, that gives an extra 24 days off work every year for those that put in an extra 45 minutes a day in the office.

The perk comes on top of annual holidays of 24 days as well as seven days off for public holidays, and in 2010, 11 "non-working" days out of the office when the Brussels institutions are closed in summer and at Christmas.

The allowances mean that last year many EU staff were entitle to 66 days or 13 weeks or a quarter of the year off work.

Inge Grassler, the German Christian Democrat MEP who uncovered the time off perk, has urged that the "flexitime" is tightened up to exclude senior EU officials, whose working hours are not measured by the clock.

"This information must mean the death of the myth of the hard-working Commission official," she said.

"I have no sympathy for time off in leadership roles. Those who earn six figures must sometimes be willing to work more than 37.5 hours – as is customary in industry."

Stephen Booth, of the Open Europe pressure group, said: "If the top ranks of the EU's civil service can take this much time off it raises interesting questions about how much work they're actually doing."

And if that was not frightening enough:

On Tuesday, Bavaria's Christian Democrats, key allies of Chancellor Merkel, declared that a "radical overhaul" of EU pay and privileges was long overdue.

Markus Ferber, a senior German MEP, said: "The privileges of EU officials must be abolished as quickly as possible."

Besides, as Mr Waterfield reminds us, one must not forget that David Cameron has "wooed" Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel into accepting the notion of freezing future Brussels budgets. Oh no! Not the great budget freeze! Just look how successful it was this time round.

EU budget adopted

It is going up by 2.9 per cent and the MEPs have accepted it. There is the odd snag from our point of view.

First of all, there is the question of what the money is to be spent on. Here is an interesting little item:

One of the biggest budget increases is 100m euros in extra funding for the Palestinians and the Middle East peace process.

Oh goody. More of our money to go on funding bloodthirsty kleptocrats in Gaza and on the West Bank, not to mention children's programmes with psychotic mice, killer bees, demented rabbits and Jihadi teddy bears.

Then there is another item of news. The budget is the budget but that is not the end of the story.

MEPs and the EU governments, which are collectively called the Council, have not yet agreed on a contingency fund to deal with emergencies, nor on financing of the Iter nuclear fusion project.

And that is before the Commission presents "a formal proposal by mid-2011 on "own resources" - ways in which the EU can boost its own finances". Ahem, is Wikileaks going to publish any of this?

Well, now, how do we feel about the EU budget getting a fail again?

Not very positive, says HMG. But then all the previous HMGs said the same thing. They really did not like the fact that the Court of Auditors refused to sign off the accounts for the whichever time. They really did not and they were going to do something about it. This HMG, a.k.a. the Cleggeron Coalition is also intending to do something about it. It will do such things, as King Lear said. But what they are they know not any more than the silly old king did.
Lord Campbell of Alloway seems to have been asking this question year in, year out:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the grounds on which the European Union Court of Auditors has withheld approval of European Union budgets.

And year in, year out, HMG gave more or less the same response

My Lords, the Government are concerned that the European Court of Auditors has been unable to provide a positive statement of assurance for the 16th year in succession. The Government support the ECA's work but are concerned at the slow pace of reforms to EU financial management. The European Commission and member states are responsible for disbursing EU funds, and share responsibility for sound financial management. The Government take financial management seriously and will shortly publish a consolidated statement on the use of EU funds in the UK.

Well, that will be reasonably useful though it remains to be seen whether they will add the amount of money that had to be raised in matching funds for projects that the EU had decided on. Still, it does not deal with the problem of the not-signed-off budgets.

Lord Campbell has a solution:

May I by leave ask a question that perhaps the Government may accept? At their behest, by dint of diplomacy, will they seek an arrangement, be it by treaty or by some other means, to ensure that the ECA's decisions are always reflected, and that they are the only decisions reflected, in the contributions of all member states to the budget?

HMG, in the shape of Lord Sassoon, chose to ignore that and to blather instead:

My Lords, I reiterate that we take the situation enormously seriously. It is deeply unsatisfactory, but progress has been made. In their latest report, the auditors have been able to certify a greater percentage of EU expenditure as satisfactory than before. There are significant complications with anything that goes to changes in the treaty arrangements in this area, but the UK is leading by example by, for instance, producing this consolidated statement, which a number of other member states are now producing and which is welcomed by the Commission. We are adopting every route to try to get improvement. We are by no means complacent, nor should the European authorities be.

Then things got out of hand and even HMG found it impossible to agree wholly with Noble Lords who assured all and sundry that there was nothing really wrong with that budget.

Lord Williamson of Horton, for example, who has spent a good part of his distinguished career in Brussels, working for the Commission, rising to the heights of Secretary-General of the European Commission and has, no doubt, a handsome pension to prove it but sees no need to declare his interest, was anxious to set the record straight

My Lords, this is a good report. Does the Minister agree that, in relation to all the administrative expenditure of all the EU institutions, the court concludes without qualification that transactions were free from material error and that the supervisory and control systems complied with the financial regulation? Does he also agree that, in relation to other policies, the court rightly points out that there are some accounting errors and, in agriculture for example, some incorrect claims from member states, which the Commission will no doubt seek to correct and recover, but that this is not a finding of fraud?

What, one wonders, are those incorrect claims that must not be called fraud?

Lord Sassoon demurred:

My Lords, I can certainly confirm what the noble Lord says. This does not necessarily excuse anything. If around 50 per cent of expenditure nevertheless does not meet the standards, whether through laxities in accounting or administration of the expenditure, it excuses nothing. Indeed, the level of fraud itself, which has been much discussed, is nevertheless at a very low level. According to the work of the European Anti-Fraud Office, OLAF, the level of fraud has decreased from 0.2 per cent of expenditure in 2007 to 0.07 per cent in 2008.

Well, OLAF is not the most reliable of organizations in the world and, in any case, the rather flexible definition of fraud does allow the figure to be quite low.

Other interventions came from such luminaries as Lord Kinnock (who also failed to declare his interest, otherwise known as a handsome pension) and Lord Dykes, a reliable spouter of europhiliac nonsense. In this case, he was so anxious to get in and to prevent Lord Pearson from asking what might have been a difficult to answer question that all he could think of was to repeat the stuff about it being just administrative and clerical problems rather than fraud that prevented the budget being signed off. Lord Sassoon was quite tetchy in his response.

That budget

The new budget has been "unveiled" by the Commission, still to be agreed to by the European Parliament. As it is proposed, both sides will get what they wanted and the Boy-King has been kicked in the behind.

Revised plans for next year's euro-budget have been unveiled - sticking to a 2.9% increase demanded by EU ministers in the face of continuing efforts by MEPs to win a 6% rise.

But the European Commission insisted there were new concessions to MEPs in its latest proposals, in the form of a "contingency fund" of up to 3.5 billion euro (£3 billion) in the event of "unforeseen circumstances".

We shall see if the MEPs will demand a bigger concession.

We have a long way to go

The EU Referendum Campaign (most definitely not to be confused with the Boss's domain) has proudly announced the results of the first opinion poll they commissioned. Apparently, 74 per cent of those asked said that the money we send to the EU would be better spent dealing with our own debt. The only thing I can ask is what about the other 26 per cent? Do they really think this is a good way of wasting taxpayers' money?

Going on from there we find that

68% of the British Public want Britain to demand an immediate reduction in our contribution to the EU Budget.

Well, they are not going to get that. Au contraire. Contributions are going up, as we know. The only question is by how much. However, once again, the question of the other 32 per cent arises. Do they not want to reduce our contribution? How very odd.

I am, however, a little puzzled by the statement made by Jon Gaunt, the public face of the campaign.

It's now crystal clear that the majority of British people want the £48 million we send every day to Brussels to be spent here in Britain on vital services. How will Britain feel when an EXTRA £450 million is sent to Brussels next year? Surely David Cameron cannot ignore the will of the British people... it's time he gave us our say on the EU.

So, our options are spending taxpayers' money on EU projects or letting the government spend taxpayers' money on wasteful and inefficient projects of the kind that have sapped this country's will to live and prosper. And then we wonder why the Tea Party Movement has no chance of taking off in Britain.

You can see the actual data here.

And another thing

Well, several other things but let us look at one of them first: that pesky EU annual budget. There were several Written Questions in the House of Lords, one from Lord Taylor of Warwick (rather surprising, that) and a couple from Lord Stoddart of Swindon.

The answers are really interesting. There is a good deal of blah about the unacceptability of the European Parliament's proposals of increasing the budget by nearly 6 per cent and slightly fewer references to the original promise of freezing the budget. We are now terribly proud of the fact that we were co-signatories of a letter with "Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Czech Republic, Denmark, Austria, Finland, Slovenia, Estonia and Malta" that demanded an increase of no more than 2.9 per cent, curiously enough the figure suggested by France and Germany.

Let us now have a look at Lord Stoddart's second question and the answer to it

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the decision by the European Parliament to increase the 2011 European Union budget by 5.9 per cent will require the specific agreement of Parliament.

By Parliament Lord Stodart means the one in Westminster. And here is the answer that explains a couple of things

On 20 October the European Parliament adopted its position in relation to the draft European Union budget for 2011 proposed by the European Commission. It proposed a 5.9 per cent increase in the budget from 2010 levels.

On 29 October, the Prime Minister and 12 other EU leaders signed a joint letter saying that the European Parliament's proposals "are especially unacceptable at a time when we are having to take difficult decisions at national level to control public expenditure. The Council has proposed an increase in EU budget spending of 2.91 per cent for 2011. We are clear that we cannot accept any more than this". The European Parliament and the Council are now meeting in a conciliation committee to try to reach agreement on a final budget for 2011.

The European Commission's draft budget and the Government's approach to annual budget negotiations are subject to parliamentary scrutiny. This is an important process, enhancing transparency, accountability and the Government's formulation of policy towards these negotiations. The final EU annual budget agreed at the end of the process does not require specific parliamentary agreement.

In other words, as this blog and EUReferendum keep saying, there is no agreement as yet on next year's annual budget. The conciliation committee is still discussing it. And, secondly, once the EU annual budget is agreed on it will be scrutinized but no "specific parliamentary agreement" will be required. We can scrutinize but we have to accept and pay up.

By all means, let's give them some more money

Same old, same old. The Court of Auditors has once again refused to sign off the EU Budget for 2009. Are there any improvements? Apparently yes but some things have become worse:

Are there any improvements compared to previous Annual Reports? Yes, as Mr Vítor Caldeira, President of the European Court of Auditors, says “the estimate for the most likely error in Cohesion spending was significantly lower than in previous years; and, for the budget as a whole, the Court's estimate of error has fallen over recent years”. This reduction outweighed, in its significance and effect on the overall level of regularity, an increase in the estimated error rate in Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Here is the Report in full. On pages 11 and 12 you will find the following paragraphs:

IX. In the Court’s opinion, ‘Revenue’, commitments for all policy groups and payments underlying the accounts for the policy groups ‘Economic and financial affairs’ and ‘Administrative and other expenditure’ for the year ended 31 December 2009 in all material respects are legal and regular.

X. In the Court’s opinion, payments underlying the accounts for the year ended 31 December 2009 for the policy groups ‘Agriculture and natural resources’, ‘Cohesion’, ‘Research, energy and transport’, ‘External Aid, development and enlargement’ and ‘Education and Citizenship’ are materially affected by error. The supervisory and control systems are partially effective in preventing or detecting and correcting the reimbursement of overstated or ineligible costs.

By all means, let us give them some more money. And we shall.

And here are those figures (more or less)

Lord Pearson of Rannoch (now Head of Fund Raising in UKIP, a position that is really more suited to his talents than being Leader) asked a Starred Question this afternoon:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their latest estimate of the net cost to the United Kingdom of membership of the European Union.

Lord Sassoon gave some figures, which are based on the assumption that the rise in next year's budget will stay at 2.9 per cent, which is bad enough.

My Lords, the UK's net payment to the European Union budget is projected to increase from £3.8 billion in 2009-10 to £8.6 billion in 2014-15. The main reasons are the increase in the size of the budget and the disapplication of the abatement to non-agricultural spending in the new member states. Both were signed up by the previous Government for 2007-13. We are very concerned about those growing contributions, and we are working hard to moderate them.

What exactly he means by working hard to moderate them remains a mystery. The rest of the debate was interesting enough to read, particularly Earl Cathcart's contribution:

My Lords, as individuals, I do not believe that any of your Lordships would continue paying good money to the bank which looked after their money, their savings, and perhaps their mortgage, pensions, life policies and investments if the auditors refused to sign off the accounts because of fraud, theft, mismanagement and embezzlement, yet Britain continues to pay good money to Europe, although the auditors have refused to sign off on the accounts for 14 years for those same four reasons. Why do the Government not pay our great contributions to the EU into a bank account in London, draw down on that to make a payment to the British people as necessary and then pay only the net amount to Brussels if and when the auditors are happy to sign off the accounts? That might concentrate a few minds.

Naturally, the answer to that is "well, that is quite a good idea but there is nothing we can do about it".

Subsequently we got the usual guff of how much we get out of the EU - far more than we put in, apparently, - though it all seems to be access to the market, which we would retain even if we were not in the EU. After all, other countries are not banned from trading with the EU if they want and they might not want.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon asked a couple of pertinent questions:

My Lords, is the Minister aware that we run a consistent trade deficit with the EU of about £40 billion a year? Could he say in relation to our net contribution, given the extra £450 million agreed by the Prime Minister at the recent quarterly meeting—or perhaps the £900 million which we will have to pay if the European Parliament has its way—how much we will then be paying?

The answers were a little less pertinent:

My Lords, in answer to the first part of the noble Lord’s question, 40 per cent of the UK’s trade goes to Europe, so it is a critical trading partner. On the potential increase of our budget contribution for next year, I should say that it was only thanks to the work of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister that the budget was put on to the agenda of the Council of Ministers and, thanks to the work he did with a number of other member states, the ridiculous proposal of a 6 per cent increase has been thrown out of court. The Council instead discussed the 2.9 per cent increase which we believed to be the absolute upper limit of what should be acceptable for next year.

If we keep running a deficit then perhaps that trading relationship is a little less critical than HMG pretends it is. As for the famous victory at the European Council, I hate to disagree with the Noble Minister, but it did not happen. The annual budget, as I keep saying, is still being discussed. Indeed, an interesting article on EUObserver tells us that even if the European Parliament backs down on its demands for an almost 6 per cent increase, there will be hidden payments, which are likely to raise the Budget contributions well above the famous 2.9 per cent (which was not, in any case, Cameron's original aim).

But Ms Jedrzejewska, who is responsible for drafting the Parliament's position on this matter, says that if the Parliament agreed to the 2.9 percent figure, more money would have to be added in "ammended budgets" throughout the course of next year.

"It's not an honest proposal and people who wrote the letter know it will be more in the end. They are just postponing payments," she said.

This tactic – already seen this year with no less than 10 amending budgets – increases the lack of transparency of EU accounts, which only leads to more lack of understanding from EU citizens, she argued.

"On one hand member states are asking us to cut payments for 2011, but on the other they are demanding supplements for 2010," Ms Jedrzejewska said.

Listing the extra expenditures already agreed for next year, she mentioned: compensations for banana producers agreed by EU member states and the World Trade Organisation, which would be worth €80 million; the France-based nuclear fusion project (ITER) project, for which international funding to the tune of €1.5 billion still has to be found; and the new EU diplomatic service which will need at least €34 million extra funds in 2011.

Not included in the draft budget is the humanitarian aid to Pakistan, for which the European Commission has not tabled a figure yet, or extra aid for the Palestinian territories, amounting to some €100 million.

Can't wait to hear how that will be spun by the Cleggeron Coalition.

Compare and contrast

Apologies for along absence, caused by a nasty bout of cold, which prevented me from attending a Mass of Reparation for those Slovenes and others murdered by the Communists in Yugoslavia in 1945 after they had been handed over by the Western allies. More on that and other matters, as they say, later.

I would, in the meantime, call attention to an interesting discrepancy between the statement made by the Boy-King of the Conservative Party who is, by some freak of historical irony, our Prime Minister about the European Council that ended on Friday and the Conclusions produced by that Council. (Here is the discussion in the Commons, in which Cameron is seen as floundering somewhat.)

Most of his statement is taken up by the question of the rise in the EU Budget for 2011 and subsequent years. To be fair, his conclusions are remarkably vague:

So before the Council started we began building an alliance to take a difference approach and insist on 2.9 per cent.

I made phone calls to my counterparts in, Sweden, France and Germany amongst others and then continued to press the case during the Council. Twelve other Heads of Government agreed with me. We issued a joint letter which makes clear that a 6% increase is – and I quote – “especially unacceptable at a time when we are having to take difficult decisions at national level to control public expenditure”.

Furthermore, the joint letter goes on to say that “we are clear that we cannot accept any more than” the 2.9% increase being proposed by the Council.

Mr Speaker, let me explain what this means. Either the Council and Parliament now have to agree to 2.9 per cent or there will be deadlock, in which case the EU will have to live on a repeat of last year’s budget settlement handed out in twelfths over the next twelve months an outcome we’d be perfectly content with.

With a great deal of self-satisfaction he says:

Mr Speaker, if you look at the published Conclusions, language on the budget formed a very prominent part, even though it was never originally on the agenda.

I do think this is an important step forward.

Even that would be a matter of opinion but, in any case, he is, once again, giving hostages to fortune. For the Budget does not occupy much or, indeed, any space in the published Conclusions. There is a great deal of discussion of the matter of Economic Governance, on which Mr Cameron is even vaguer than on the subject of the Budget. It is in connection with that little problem that the Conclusions state:

Heads of State or Government stressed that, at the same time as fiscal discipline is reinforced in the European Union, it is essential that the European Union budget and the forthcoming Multi-annual Financial Framework reflect the consolidation efforts being made by Member States to bring deficit and debt onto a more sustainable path. Respecting the role of the different institutions and the need to meet Europe's objectives, the European Council will discuss at its next meeting how to ensure that spending at the European level can make an appropriate contribution to this work.

Section II is about the Seoul G20 Summit, Section III is on the Cancun Conference on Climate Change and, apparently, the British Government would like to see binind UN legislation, according to the PM's statement. A couple of sentences about Summits with Third Countries and .... that's it. Budget? What Budget? Well, I did point out that it was not on the Agenda and, in any case, was not for the European Council to discuss.

How shocking that the Prime Minister should be misleading Parliament in this way.

About that EU budget increase

Let us start in the House of Lords where the Comprehensive Standing Review Statement was repeated by Lord Sassoon, the Commercial Secretary to the Treasury, on Wednesday afternoon. During the debate after it, Lord Stoddart asked a very reasonable question (Lord Stoddart specializes in being very reasonable and it seriously annoys the europhiliacs)

The Government have ring-fenced health and overseas aid. Is there not another item that has been ring-fenced? It is our net contribution to the European Union, which is £6.7 billion this year. Would the Minister agree that if that were reduced by 20 per cent, it would enable 55,000 more nurses, policemen or teachers to be employed? Should our country not come first rather than subsidising other countries?

Whether we really do want all those extra nurses, policemen and teachers is a separate issue. But our contribution to the EU Budget has not only been ring-fenced, it is actually set to increase.

I can't say that Lord Sassoon's response filled me with any great cheer:

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, for a question that reminds us that we are working extremely hard as a nation to live within our means. It is equally important that within Europe the European Union also lives within its means. The Government will be doing everything they can to make sure that proper financial discipline is applied to the European budget this year and for the next spending period. I do not know, but I have a sense-I might like to ask on the subject-that the Labour Members of the European Parliament were today voting to allow the European Union to have its own tax-raising powers to fund a separate pot of money. The present Government want to see proper discipline applied to European Union expenditure.

It really is time members of Her Majesty's Government and, indeed, all politicians realized that as far as the Toy European Parliament is concerned these party games are meaningless. That is not how that institution works. In any case, what Lord Sassoon should have been concentrating on is the vote on increasing the EU Budget by 5.9 per cent which will raise the UK's contribution by another £843 million, taking its gross contribution to £15.67 billion. (In parenthesis, let me note that I see no rationale for looking at "net" contribution. After all, nobody says: "Ah yes, I pay so much in tax but get so much back in whatever the government decides to spend the money on so my net tax contributions is really only this.")

In the meantime, the Boy-King has realized that this might be quite a difficult issue and has come out fighting huffing and puffing, as the Boss on EURef has noted. No harm in going through it again.

First of all, as the Boss has pointed out, if we get away from the headline, what we actually get is:

Dismissing calls for extra money from British taxpayers as “outrageous”, he said he would lead a rebellion to force the EU to make cuts in line with those being made by national governments.

Oh wizard! He will lead a rebellion? He and whose army of rebels? And how is he going to lead it after the Toy Parliament has already passed the increase?

How the EU Budget is decided is, like everything else, defined in the Treaties. Article 314 [scroll down]states:

The European Parliament and the Council, acting in accordance with a special legislative procedure, shall establish the Union's annual budget in accordance with the following provisions.

1. With the exception of the European Central Bank, each institution shall, before 1 July, draw up estimates of its expenditure for the following financial year. The Commission shall consolidate these estimates in a draft budget. which may contain different estimates. The draft budget shall contain an estimate of revenue and an estimate of expenditure.

2. The Commission shall submit a proposal containing the draft budget to the European Parliament and to the Council not later than 1 September of the year preceding that in which the budget is to be implemented. The Commission may amend the draft budget during the procedure until such time as the Conciliation Committee, referred to in paragraph 5, is convened.

3. The Council shall adopt its position on the draft budget and forward it to the European Parliament not later than 1 October of the year preceding that in which the budget is to be implemented. The Council shall inform the European Parliament in full of the reasons which led it to adopt its position.

4. If, within forty-two days of such communication, the European Parliament:

(a) approves the position of the Council, the budget shall be adopted;

(b) has not taken a decision, the budget shall be deemed to have been adopted;

(c) adopts amendments by a majority of its component members, the amended draft shall be forwarded to the Council and to the Commission. The President of the European Parliament, in agreement with the President of the Council, shall immediately convene a meeting of the Conciliation Committee. However, if within ten days of the draft being forwarded the Council informs the European Parliament that it has approved all its amendments, the Conciliation Committee shall not meet.

5. The Conciliation Committee, which shall be composed of the members of the Council or their representatives and an equal number of members representing the European Parliament, shall have the task of reaching agreement on a joint text, by a qualified majority of the members of the Council or their representatives and by a majority of the representatives of the European Parliament within twenty-one days of its being convened, on the basis of the positions of the European Parliament and the Council. The Commission shall take part in the Conciliation Committee's proceedings and shall take all the necessary initiatives with a view to reconciling the positions of the European Parliament and the Council.

6. If, within the twenty-one days referred to in paragraph 5, the Conciliation Committee agrees on a joint text, the European Parliament and the Council shall each have a period of fourteen days from the date of that agreement in which to approve the joint text.

7. If, within the period of fourteen days referred to in paragraph 6:

(a) the European Parliament and the Council both approve the joint text or fail to take a decision, or if one of these institutions approves the joint text while the other one fails to take a decision, the budget shall be deemed to be definitively adopted in accordance with the joint text; or

(b) the European Parliament, acting by a majority of its component members, and the Council both reject the joint text, or if one of these institutions rejects the joint text while the other one fails to take a decision, a new draft budget shall be submitted by the Commission; or

(c) the European Parliament, acting by a majority of its component members, rejects the joint text while the Council approves it, a new draft budget shall be submitted by the Commission; or

(d) the European Parliament approves the joint text whilst the Council rejects it, the European Parliament may, within fourteen days from the date of the rejection by the Council and acting by a majority of its component members and three-fifths of the votes cast, decide to confirm all or some of the amendments referred to in paragraph 4(c). Where a European Parliament amendment is not confirmed, the position agreed in the Conciliation Committee on the budget heading which is the subject of the amendment shall be retained. The budget shall be deemed to be definitively adopted on this basis.

8. If, within the twenty-one days referred to in paragraph 5, the Conciliation Committee does not agree on a joint text, a new draft budget shall be submitted by the Commission.

9. When the procedure provided for in this Article has been completed, the President of the European Parliament shall declare that the budget has been definitively adopted.

10. Each institution shall exercise the powers conferred upon it under this Article in compliance with the Treaties and the acts adopted thereunder, with particular regard to the Union's own resources and the balance between revenue and expenditure.

I think we can say with some justification that the Boss over on EURef is absolutely correct. The chances of the Boy-King actually doing anything about this are similar to my chances of being asked to dance the lead in the next production of Swan Lake at Covent Garden. The real question is does he know this? Has he read Article 314 and does he understand it? In other words, we are asking that old old question: is he a knave or a fool or a combination of the two?

This must be a bitter pill

As the Boy-King, his best friend, little Georgie-Porgie and their other little friends are slapping each other on the back and rolling around with excitement at the thought of all those cuts in welfare spending and one or two other things (though one suspects the final tally will not be all that impressive) news comes that the European Parliament has voted to increase the 2011 EU budget by 5.9 per cent.

If the EU budget was frozen at 2010 levels (€123bn or £108.2bn) the UK contribution would have been £14.82bn. But under the European Parliament’s increased budget (€130bn or £114.4bn) the UK will contribute £15.67bn. This represents an increase £843m to the UK’s gross contribution.

We knew it, did we not? Cameron just had to turn round and wag his finger at them and all will be well.

On top of that, Britain has been defeated on extension of maternity leave: The European Parliament has today voted to extend the European Commission’s proposals on maternity leave to 20 weeks on full pay. An internal European Parliament impact assessment estimates that the cost of the changes to the UK will be €3 billion (£2.5 billion) per annum. This figure has been confirmed by the UK Government.

Clearly we are winning in Europe. Not!

Cameron will survive this unimportant quasi-rebellion

As I pointed out before I was not overwhelmed by the behaviour of Conservative (or any other) MPs on the question of the EU budget. A lot of pother about very little though, undoubtedly one must honour the 37 Tories and 5 others who did have the gumption to vote for Douglas Carswell's Amendment.

Iain Martin of the Wall Street Journal to whom I have referred before (here and here) is of a different opinion. He is all excited and thinks that David Cameron a.k.a. the Boy-King of the Conservative Party and through some strange historical joke the Prime Minister of this country, must be getting worried.

Occassionaly, when hardly a soul is watching, it is still possible to see something in the Commons that might, just might, suggest interesting developments years hence. “We’re the ipod generation of Euroskeptics,” said one MP. “Younger, more moderate and determined to decontaminate the Euroskeptic brand.”

Just how many years hence and what kind of an idiot makes comments about ipod generations of eurosceptics, hoping to get away with it? Do they have mush for brains? (OK, don't answer that.)

Apparently, a number of those mysterious non-voters who made those astonishingly courageous speeches (yes, I am being sarcastic here) had to leave because of prior engagement. Well, well, well. Is this how a rebellion is to be conducted? By people having prior engagements when the important vote actually rolls around? I suppose Ms Pritti Patel just could not cancel or postpone that engagement, knowing how important this vote was? No, of course not.

Anyway, I agree with Witterings from Witney: this will give Cameron no headache, not even a twinge.

Iain Martin's supposition that the Conservative Eurosceptic MPs may bring down the Coalition has a touch of 'pie in the sky' about it - especially when accepting that Cameron has more iron in his grip on his party than he has in his guarantees! Which probably accounts for the fact that Conservative Eurosceptic MPs seem able to 'talk the talk' but unable to 'walk the walk'.

For once, I even agree with Roger Helmer who wrote before this vote that the Cleggeron Coalition has lost the plot as far as the EU is concerned. Nothing that happened in the last couple of days has disproved that.

It's the way you tell 'em

A glass half full or half empty? Half full says ConHome, definitely. Tim Montgomerie is excited, poor chap, by the fact that 37 Conservative MPs (thirty-seven!) defied the Whip and voted for Douglas Carswell's Amendment yesterday to reduce contributions to the EU at a time when everybody is tightening belts. Well, goody-goody.

On the other hand 12 MPs who also signed the Amendment decided for whatever reason not to vote for it. (I must admit I am a little surprised at Philip Davies.)

The really joyous news as far as ConHome is concerned is that

The overall debate was a festival of Euroscepticism with particularly strong contributions from younger, newer Tory MPs. One got the sense that the baton of opposition to the European superstate was passing to a new generation. Priti Patel, in particular, was on great form.

Ms Patel, I may add, was also one of the MPs who, having signed the amendment, did not bother to vote for it. Justine Greening, who apparently made some "robust" statements, did not bother to vote for the amendment. But then, she is on the front bench, not that she was particularly courageous when she had no official position.

As a matter of fact, I was rather impressed by Gisela Stuart's intervention:

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. She says that this debate demonstrates the importance that the Government attach to giving the House a say. Can she tell us whether a vote on the matter, either way, would make the slightest bit of difference?

Indeed. And the answer from the "robust" Ms Greening?

The hon. Lady is assuming that those Members who have tabled amendments will press them to a vote. Perhaps she is prejudging the outcome of the debate. We welcome the debate because, tomorrow, I shall be in Brussels pressing our case in respect of the European Union budget, and it is vital that we are able to say that we have scrutinised the document thoroughly in our European Parliament.

In our "European" Parliament? A Freudian slip, perchance? And, in any case, scrutinizing it, however thoroughly, and I doubt very much that any MP even looked at it, is not the same as making a difference.

So, exactly, how is this good news from a eurosceptic point of view?

Here is the debate in full. And here is the vote (you have to scroll down a bit).