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Netherlands robbed three times in new EU budget

2 May 2018

Netherlands robbed three times in new EU budget

Payments increased, income from customs duties reduced, and the Netherlands' rebate ended. Robbed by the European Commission three times over. The proposed new budget presented today by the Commission goes beyond all previous limits. Renske Leijten, SP spokeswoman on EU affairs in the national parliament, believes that a smaller European Union, without the United Kingdom, should also mean a smaller budget.

“Now that the UK is leaving, less money will be coming in, which means a reduced EU budget,” says Leijten. “But not for Juncker and his European Commissioners. They want the budget to rise by €300 billion, with the Netherlands coughing up two or three billion a year more, a rise of almost a third compared to what we pay now.”

The Commission's proposal is the starting pistol for a good eighteen months' negotiations on the 'Multi-annual Financial Framework' which will run from 2020 to 2027. “The Commission states that the Union will face additional tasks which will cost money, relating for instance to migration and the climate,” Leijten explains. “That's true, but at the same time we know that a great deal of money is pumped back and forth between member states and Brussels, that money is misspent, that there's a great deal of waste – take for example the monthly removal of the European Parliament from Brussels to Strasbourg. And then there's the huge agricultural subsidies dished out to major landowners.” But this Commission isn't interested in giving anything up. On the contrary, they're after a further 300 billion.

“The government would be well-advised to wait for real negotiations until a new European Commission is installed next year,” says Leijten. “It can hardly be more unreasonable than Juncker.”

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