Interesting take Invictus, I wonder if that really is a large contributing factor, and if it'll work..

It does seem odd that the UK is anti-EU from here, what do you think the percentages would be in the result of an in-out referendum?

Trust me that referendum will never take place, it would rip the Tories to shreds, too many companies who do business in Europe would stop their support and funding of the Tories, that referendum was used to try and unite warring factions in the Tory Party who are concerned about the rise of UKIP, a lot of Tory support has defected to UKIP.

"Rich countries like Germany, the Netherlands, etc probably don't want to take up the slack on agricultural subsidies and the like on top of everything they're spending on the eurocrisis."

Exactly. :-)

Referenda are the worst possible instrument at the disposition of elected politicians. We elect them to take well-informed decisions, not vice versa. This referenda - as are all referenda - is a terrible, terrible idea.

@redhouse - do you think a referendum could ever produce a result that sees about 40% of expenditure going to an industry that accounts for about 3% of the economy? Or do you think we could only achieve such a bizarre result by leaving it to the well informed decision makers?

@niggebaby - either the UK will have a referendum or a revolution by the end of the decade.

Poor foolish Nigee. There will be a referendum, and the people will vote in favour of staying in. This is as close to certain as makes no difference. If you seriously think that a referendum will do more damage to the Tories than promising one and then not going through with it then you're a far bigger idiot than I take you for.

But yes, a great day for Europe. Those with level heads are taking a firm grip of the wheel for a change. Before us lies a difficult passage, but the rewards will be great :)

In other news my wife's credit card limit has been reduced from £10k to £9,500, he monthly expenditure is still going up each month, but as her limit has come down, that's a cut right?

@Maniac

wut

rehouse - the UK is left in a position whereby the overall budget limit is coming down, but we are paying more each year. This is being presented as a cut. If anyone suggests it is a real terms rise, they agree but then blame past administrations. More politicians failing to take responsibility. If they didn't like what Blair did reverse it, don't increase the spending and blame them for it.

I didn't quite understand your referendum comment...

@Maniac

Exactly how do you imagine that Blair's poor showing can be simply reversed? What has been achieved by the growing alliance of right thinking EU nations is impressive, but whining on about what Blair gave away would painfully weaken our position. I, for one, am thankful that we're paying a lot less than we would have done.

This is just the first step in a long process of reform. The budget is still appallingly directed, the European Parliament itself needs huge reform, the powers of member states needs to be re-evaluated. But what this has done is to show it may be possible. We may be able to forge an EU worthy of its people.

The Labour Party have said no to a referendum and Labour will either have an outright majority at the next election or will be in coalition with the Lib Dems,
There will be no referendum because we only need one if we are losing power to Brussels, not taking some back. The UK will not leave the EU. It's not going to happen. The sooner the Little Englanders, bigots, racists and Tory right-wing accept this the better. If you need a pressing issue to concern yourself with .... it's the ECONOMY stoopid !!

Lol!

Milliband said no, much to the shock of his party, and then his spin doctors quickly moved in and fudged his no saying he meant not in this Parliament or these conditions :p. When the next election is getting close and it's looking a lot closer than Labour had hoped for (for mid term the Labour lead is pitiful) Labour are damned near certain to say how they have 'listened to the people' and will offer the referendum if they win.

Also, I know you like to see yourself as some sort of supertroll, but going down the route of insulting everyone who disagrees with you just makes you look a twat.

I am a twat, you got an issue with that? if so I'll see you outside. Put up your dukes, I'll give you a good slap :-)

How big is this budget compared with the budgets of the 27 EU nations combined? Is the figure of 1% correct?

How does that compare to the US federal budget? The EU gets ~1% of the 27 nations combined incomes and don't have the power to raise it's own income.

(about 5% of what the US federal government spends each year - at current exchange rates, and this ignores the fact that in the US they spend more than they collect in taxation...)

(looking at the figures, the EU gets ~€137 billion per year, which is ~2.4% of the revenue raised by the 27 nations - ~ €5.65 trillion per year)

And all these figures ignore the fact that after paying ~13% of the EU budget, 7% gets spent on the UK (and i think this ignores the rebate). The rest goes to improving the weaker nations who can trade with the UK which has the knock on effect of boosting the economy and security (because happy successful Europeans are less likely to start wars, overthrow government or otherwise disrupt the neighbourhood... like the Greeks and their protests over the mismanagement of their economy - security and stability is improved by this 6% - and food security is the reason for the large agricultural subsidy, what percentage of UK government spending is this? )

the bad news is its only going down 3%. The agricultural sector of the EU is one of the most incompetent government agencies out there. I'd rather we remove it and have a free market in farming like in North America.

As for EU-GB, both parties will be better off together. Th EU needs to tax revenue from London bankers and GB needs the trade revenue from Europe. Its win-win.

@Nigee, please stop doing whatever it is you're doing in my thread.
@orathaic, excellent point.

@Fasces, could you explain yourself re: incompetent agency, I always thought of it as a particular expensive agency.

Octavious - I wasn't whining about what Blair gave away. As I recall he was negotiating about new entrants, whether or not he should have given so much is not the issue. The issue is what happens is that the other side (in this case the Tories) moaned about how much labour contributed, then take power and increase amount we contribute and then blame Blair. All I want is politicians that will say either we pay too much and I'm going to cut spending, or politicians that say we need to contribute the same or more and follow through. What we get is politicians saying we spend too much, and then contribute more.

I'm not a fan of referendums, but our politicians of all colours have made such a mess of the structure and spending that they need to be able to make their case to the British public. If anyone thinks the population doesn't understand the issue it's because the politicians haven't explained the issue at all.

@ Maniac

It is my understanding (and I could be wrong) that the reason the UK's contribution over the next 7 years will be slightly higher is a direct result of Labour negotiating away part of our rabate by saying that new members don't have to contribute to it. I find the fact that Labour are not making a huge effort to highlight this increase as a sign that they themselves see it as a result of their actions.

Credit where it's due, the consensus from all corners is that Cameron and his allies pulled a blinder in this one. The best measure of the success of a British Prime Minister in Europe is how annoyed the French are, and the French are bloody furious ;)

its one of the only examples in history where a government agency has put both a price ceiling and a price floor on the same product.

It banned GMOs due to health risks that it didn't conduct any study on.

it has reduced the free market incentives of the agricultural industry.

its done a lot of really crappy things.

GMOs are absolutely brilliant, I agree. I don't like GM, I eat it out of principle.

"free market in farming like in North America."

That's pretty bold considering the amount of import barriers on agricultural products in the North America. The developed countries are happily liberalizing worldwide trade in everything but agricultural products. You know, since those are the only products most developing countries are competitive in and free trade would actually help them.

@Maniac, the Tories did say the EU budget was too big, and this is the first reduction of it.

Which is a real value reduction over the UK would have otherwise pay.

So yeah, doing exactly what they said they would...

The United States currently pays around $20 billion per year to farmers in direct subsidies as "farm income stabilization" src: wikipedia

Farming is one of the most heavily regulated and subsidized industries in North America. Free market it is not.

I was more referring to how Harper eliminated the Agriculture board in Canada and how little regulations there are in food safety in North America (both Canada and America) compared to the rest of the developed world.

America subsidizes some but not all farms, and most food products on the shelves didn't require subsidies to get there.

In America things like corn syrup are subsidized and farmers get a lot of support, but it's a different animal in Europe. There's no way that agriculture could survive in many of those countries without hefty loads of aid. Globalization has brought us to a weird place where American and Argentinian beef may be less expensive than beef raised in Europe. Same with produce and processed foods.

I really hate that kind of talk. I don't give a shit about local business, if a farmer in Argentina is better at farming then my neighbour, I'd rather buy from him.

Subsidizes industries just because they would go under if they don't is exactly what is suppose to happen in a free market. If your farm isn't profitable, your just wasting land and other resources by farming.