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Future EU Finances and Own Resources

No, I certainly do not include the UK. The southern Mediterranean countries, by their own admission, have not got financial systems in place that are sufficiently vigorous. My main point is that we have seen monumental change in the past few years in the shape of the EU, and there has been no greater change than the addition of 10 new member states, nine of them in central and eastern Europe. We should welcome that and be proud of the fact that our Government, more than any other, championed the enlargement process, which has been entirely successful. Enlargement is significant in a political sense, too. Most of the countries that have entered the EU tend to share the British perspective on EU development. They, too, do not want a centralised European superstate, run from Brussels. Having thrown off the yoke of the Soviet Union, they cherish their sense of identity and purpose and, like us, they will not easily give it up again.