Quote:
Originally Posted by Derek
"We will not pay" = "We will pay £667 million next year and gift UKIP an open goal for the election campaign."
http://bbc.in/10E1dRT |
The devil is in the detail, but at present this does look like a useful deal.
These corrections to member states' contributions aren't a novel idea. They have been around for years and we have benefited from them in the past. The problem has always been the scale of the demand and the payment deadline.
The Treasury said it would look for a legal means of reducing the amount and it seems to have found one, by successfully arguing that the UK's rebate should be applied to the calculation (actually I would have thought it obvious that it should have been - I'm not sure what's gone on here, whether someone's been trying to pull a fast one in Brussels, or whether HMG has been asleep at the wheel).
Coupled with that, they seem to have convinced other treasury ministers and heads of government that you can't go demanding the equivalent construction cost of three sizeable NHS hospitals on about eight weeks' notice. The introduction of interest-free instalments and a much delayed settlement date seems to be a new idea, although again, really it should have been obvious that such a mechanism might be needed if ever an unusually large payment demand came in.