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Future EU Finances and Own Resources

Indeed. I would have thought that other member states felt that. In fact, they are becoming more aware of it. As enthusiasm for the EU declines, people want to assert their independent democratic rights without being nationalistic. The problem with the current arrangement is that it is likely to increase the unpleasant sort of nationalism because people feel that their democracy is somehow being weakened. To decide as free member states, confident in their democracy, to work voluntarily with other member states, is a recipe for genuine co-operation and internationalism. That would remove or at least reduce the amount of unpleasant nationalism that exists in member states, including Britain to some extent. There are dangers in such nationalism, as we know from European history. Let us consider what happened in December. Britain was guilt-tripped into doing a deal because, without it, the poorer, newer member states would be disadvantaged. They are disadvantaged because the budget is overwhelmingly dominated by agriculture spending in richer member states. We should simply have a budget arrangement without the CAP and the CFP. Aid policy, too, should be repatriated because it is inefficiently managed in Europe and goes to the wrong places. We do well on aid and have a good reputation and we could even operate on an agency basis forthe EU through the Department for International Development. That would be much better than operating through the EU. Nevertheless, we could have an agreement to spend a proportion of our gross domestic product on aid but to administer it ourselves or on an agency basis, without going through the European Commission, which is notoriously inefficient in administering it. We were guilt-tripped into the decision about the newer member states. However, if all the other aspects of the budget were reduced or eliminated, we could have a budget that could be administered in an absolutely fair way. Contributions and receipts could be exactly proportional to the levels of prosperity in the different member states. The rich states could pay in according to their prosperity, and the poorer ones would derive benefit from the budget according to their relative poverty. That would be a fair and moral way of implementing a redistributive budget. The fiscal transfers would be precisely fair. I might even suggest that it would be a socialist approach, involving redistribution from the rich to the poor. I would be very happy indeed with such an arrangement.