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European Council: 15–16 December 2005

My Lords, could the Leader of the House confirm that the European Union contributed £5.4 billion to the new member states between 1990 and 1999; €21 billion to them in the current 1999 to 2006 financial perspective; and that the UK contributed its full financial share to all of that money paid before 1 May 2004 and received no rebate on it? Would she not agree, therefore, that it is perfectly reasonable to treat that spending now as outside the rebate system, and that it was so accepted by the Opposition when they were in office? Does the Minister also agree that, with the benefit of foresight, it was a mistake for the British EU presidency to cut so much from the allocations of the new member states in its first compromise proposal only to have to reinstate almost all of it in the last one? What was gained by that mistaken manoeuvre?