Yesterday I reported that the UK had been given extra time to pay the surcharge bill, but while fin min George Osborne claimed that the deal he had secured on the EUR 2.1bln surcharge went “far beyond what anyone expected us to achieve” the reality is somewhat different.
a real result for Britain.
Instead of footing the bill, we have halved the bill, we have delayed the bill, we will pay no interest on the bill, and if there are mistakes in the bill we will get our money back.
We have also changed permanently the rules of the European Union so this never happens again.
The UK will pay two interest-free sums next year totalling GBP 850m, instead of the larger lump sum by 1 December this year, after a GBP 785m rebate from Brussels due in 2016 appeared to have been brought forward.
Labour’s shadow fin min Ed Balls said the deal had not saved UK taxpayers “a single penny” and accused Osborne of “smoke and mirrors” and spin
Other European finance ministers said Britain had not received a discount.Ireland’s Michael Noonan said the UK would “pay the full amount”, and Hans Joerg Schelling, from Austria, said “the amount cannot be put in question”.
Dutch fin min and President of the Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem added:
The UK has … a rebate, which they have had for a very long time and of course this mechanism of rebate will also apply on the new contribution.
So it’s not as if the British have been given a discount today.
This morning Osborne has been on BBC radio to defend his claims saying it had not been clear before the talks in Brussels on Friday that the rebate had been going to apply in full.
Adding
The truth is we have achieved a real win for British taxpayers
Nice try George but no one’s falling for it, and we can expect this hot topic to play out significantly in the UK/EU debate heading into next year’s election, with the government’s integrity over the whole issue once again being called into question.
Osborne- rattled over surcharge victory claims
