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Britain’s EU membership hangs by one less thread

Salamone, A. (2014) “Britain’s EU membership hangs by one less thread“, Britain’s Europe Blog, 27 Οκτωβρίου.

 

Britain, it seems, owes the European Union a certain sum of money. In every year since 2002, it has underpaid into the EU budget and the day of reckoning has finally arrived. However, as usual when it comes to ‘Europe’ for the UK, symbolism triumphs over substance. The country has been hit with a bill for £1.7 billion and given less than six weeks to pay.

It’s hard to argue that the UK shouldn’t pay up. For over a decade, other EU countries have been charged more because Britain didn’t fully implement the agreed standards for measuring the national accounts. At its heart, it’s a question of fairness. Member States pay for the EU in proportion to the size of their economies. The compounding of years’ worth of errors is simply being addressed.

For an issue which is supposedly so straightforward, it could not be more complicated. Britain’s EU membership has hardly looked so precarious than at present, and this surcharge has added incalculable fuel to the political bonfire that is UK-EU relations. Domestic electoral politics are the winner of the hour, as the UK’s parties position themselves on and around Europe. Any notion of Britain stabilising its fragile place within the Union appears exceedingly remote.

 

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