British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday confirmed that the European budget deal he sought during Friday night's Brussels summit showdown would have cost Britain more in the long run in exchange for a sweeping reform of EU finances.
In his post-summit report to members of parliament (MPs) Blair insisted that reforms which addressed wasteful and outdated farm subsidies for rich states as well as the needs of poorer new EU members would justify making compromises on Britain's own British pounds ?3 billion (US$5.5 billion) budget rebate -- because it is "the right deal" for all concerned.
With Blair scheduled to take over the rotating presidency on July 1 he revealed that he had sought to break the Brussels deadlock by proposing a "fundamental review" of the structure of the EU budget -- including Britain's rebate and farm subsidies -- midway through the current 2002-2013 financial period, in 2008.
Though the language in the draft had been ambiguous -- "we were unhappy about it" -- later revisions were even worse. Luxembourg's "compromise" would have re-opened the gap between French and British contributions from around 13 billion euros (US$23.7 billion) over the next six years to 23 billion euros.
With no rebate Britain would be paying even more than Germany.
"This money incidentally would not have gone to poorer countries, but been redistributed among the wealthy ones. This is a deal I simply could not have recommended to this House," he said.
Blair's comments to parliament came as Britain's most enthusiastic pro-European Cabinet minister, Geoff Hoon, warned that "Euroscepticism" was on the march throughout Europe and would intensify unless something dramatic was done to reconnect the politics of Europe and its nations.
The leader of the House and former member of the European Parliament said: "I cannot emphasize sufficiently how serious is the position all of us find ourselves in. It is a pivotal moment for Europe."
The summit had accepted that the EU constitutional treaty was now dead, he said and he and four other member states had resisted pressure from the EU's current Luxembourg presidency to accept what he dismissed as "the usual cobbled together compromise" over the budget.
"It simply does not make sense in this new world for Europe to spend 40 percent of its budget on [farming], representing 5 percent of EU population producing less than 2 percent of EU output, seven times what is spent on science, research and education combined," he said.
Even Conservative opposition leader Michael Howard acknowledged that, for once, there were "more aspects that we can agree on than usual" after an EU summit, though he unsuccessfully taunted Blair with wasting two years defending the constitution instead of promoting the "decentralized, outward looking EU" the Tories say they want to see.
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