Buzek and Cameron clash over 2011 budget
Eleven member states say they will not accept an increase of more than 2.9%.
Jerzy Buzek, the president of the European Parliament, clashed with David Cameron, the UK’s prime minister, and other EU leaders at the European Council over the size of next year’s EU budget.
Buzek defended the Parliament’s proposed 5.9% increase in next year’s EU budget, a proposal that has met severe criticism from the UK, the Netherlands and other member states, many of which are having to make deep budget cuts at home.
Buzek told the EU leaders that cutting the Union’s budget would “cut faith in Europe”.
His comments were criticised by Cameron, who told Buzek that his government could not accept the 5.9% increase. The UK’s prime minister received support from Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, and Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s president.
Arriving at today’s summit, Cameron had said he wanted “to build alliances, work with colleagues to put a stop” to the Parliament’s proposal.
He said: “I think that it is completely unacceptable at a time when European countries, including the United Kingdom, are taking tough decisions on their budgets and having to cut some departments…that European institutions should be spending more money on themselves in the way that they propose.”
Cameron convinced 10 other countries to support a call for the increase in the EU’s 2011 budget to be limited to 2.91%, the level agreed by the Council of Ministers in August.
The leaders of the UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Austria, Finland, Slovenia and Estonia will sign a letter to be sent to Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council, and Yves Leterme, the prime minister of Belgium, who is leading the Council’s budget negotiations with MEPs, on 29 October.
The letter says that the proposal from the European Commission and MEPs for a 5.9% increase in the budget for 2011 is “especially unacceptable at a time when we are having to take difficult decisions at national level to control public expenditure”. It says that the 11 countries cannot accept an increase greater than the 2.91% that the Council has proposed.
José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, defended Buzek and the proposed increase, saying that such a rise was needed to fund policies agreed to by EU governments. Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg’s prime minister, said he supported Barroso’s comments.
During the budget debate, Buzek said that trying to cut the EU budget was “anti-European”, to which Cameron replied that he was cutting the UK’s police budget. “Does that make me anti-police?” he asked. Merkel joined in, saying she was cutting Germany’s budget and asked if that meant she was anti-German.
The Parliament president told reporters after his meeting with EU leaders that “there was no clear support for what Cameron proposed”.
“I would say opinions are split,” said Buzek. “Everybody stressed we are going through difficult times so we need to cut spending, but it does not happen everywhere in such a severe way as Cameron has said.”
Click Here: pinko shop cheap