Chancellor George Osborne's has been slapped down by his EU counterparts and by the Financial Times over his claim to have halved the UK's £1.7bn EU budget surcharge.
The rebate was ‘never in doubt’, says the Commission
Chancellor George Osborne has been slapped down by the EU Commission and by the Financial Times over his claim to have halved the UK’s £1.7bn EU budget surcharge.
The UK is now set to pay a total of £850m next year in two interest free sums rather than the original £1.7bn which was due by December 1.
Osborne spun the news yesterday as a “real result for Britain”.
Yet it appears Britain would have got back the money Osborne is claiming the credit for anyway, through the EU budget rebate – it has now simply been taken out of the sum Britain originally owed.
In its defense the Treasury is claiming that it was not clear that the rebate would have ever applied in full and they gained that assurance *only* after discussions with the Commission.
It is a shame for Mr Osborne, then, that this account is being flatly contradicted by EU officials. As the Mail is reporting, asked if the rebate had been in doubt, the EC vice-president said: “No, absolutely not.”
And an official from the Commission has now taken to Twitter to slam down the Tory Treasury over its rebate spin:
To repeat: the rebate was “never in doubt”. This means that Osborne’s claim yesterday to have won some kind of victory for Britain was, in the words of Ed Balls, “smoke and mirrors”.
This from Simon Wren-Lewis, economics Professor at Oxford, aptly sums up the failure of the British media to call Osborne out on this nonsense:
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19 Responses to “EU Commission slaps down George Osborne over rebate claim”
Guest
You’re making up nonsense, what on earth does your xenophobia have to do with Britain, Syrian?
We don’t need your chlorine bombs here.
YamalDodgyData
“the dregs of society are making UKIP their home”
Keep on sneering against traditional Labour voters, and wonder why UKIP are on course to gain +100 seats in the North of England.
“Lahore-style” politics and the postal vote can only go so far for Labour.
The Reform Party of Canada and their working class voters in the prairie provinces were also slandered as racist fruitcakes.
Godfrey Paul
We are no longer in charge of our own boarder and now it seems we are no longer in charge of our own finances.
Time to get out of the EU !!!
Selohesra
Clearly too difficult for the two Eds who were too busy slamming Govt for not seeing €1.7Bn bill coming that they failed to pre-empt Osbourne’s victory speech by pointing out the rebate impact before George got the credit.
Cole
What boarders are these? Oh, you can’t expect these false Ukip patriots to spell correctly.