It seems a cynical ploy to move attention away from the resounding "Non" vote in France, but here we go:

We say:

"This country should pay its fair share, no more, no less."

The French say:

We should give up the rebate as a show of 'solidarity'.


We got the rebate back in '84 because:

The bulk of the EU budget is spent on supporting farmers' incomes, so countries with a large agricultural sector get more back than they put in.
Large countries like Britain are net contributors to the EU budget, while Italy and France are broadly neutral.
Maggie negotiated a reduction of two-thirds of our payments because we paid too much and received relatively little in return.

Most recent example:

In 2003, France paid 15.15bn euros into the EU coffers, but received 13.43bn euros in return, making a net payment of about 1.7bn euros. This 1.7bn euros figure includes a 1.6bn contribution to the UK rebate.
We paid 9.97bn euros into the EU budget but received 6.22bn euros in return, so it made a net contribution of about 3.8bn euros. This figure would have been much bigger, but for the rebate, one third of which came from France.

as I've said for quite a while... we should leave the EU, cant see what advantage it gives us other than making us one big immigration target for all the poorer countries in europe!

There is no money the UK should pay the EU, and anytyhing we can get back is all but fair...
The difference is just pure loss and has no reason to be.

Only reason this debate is cropping up is because the EU has accpeted countries that aren't ready.
that and the fact that the EU has no reason to exist apart from beeing an economical community ...

Money:suspect: it does nothing more than make the world a nasty place to live in:suspect: we live in ENGLAND not france (EUROPE) why should we be told what to do?:gag: we are just a dumping ground for the poor countries.......

Despite being a confirmed Eurosceptic for some years now, I was mortified to see just how much we put in to the EU.

Time to leave.

Become a trading partner with them, certainly, but that's all. Look how the Euro countries have alread broken all the 'rules' they set up orignally about borrowing.

Basket case economies in the making - let's not join them.

Joe

If we ever sign up to the euro or the constitution then you can forget about democracy,it will be fiished.
The E U is simply a political ideal which may sound nice on the drawing board but the reality is somewhat different.
The people have been conned into thinking we were just entering a trading block when the man responsible for our entry into this union,Ted Heath knew all along it was about political union.
ALL the main parties are comitted to the E U ,you need to look at the other parties like BNP or UKIP for the alternative,now some might say I would say that but its the truth isnt it?
We should pull out at once and simply trade with them,this way we get the benefits without the negatives.

From the £8.5 Billion we shell out to the EU we get £4 Billion in subsidies and the £3 Billion rebate is to balance out the fact that if it was not there we would be the highest contributing country in the union. To relinquish the EU rebate to Chirac means that we would effectively be one of the highest contributing but lowest recieving countries.

As I remember it Mrs Thatcher fought long and hard for it and rightly so as it would mean a deficit which would certainly bring severe rammifications to our membership to the EU and make it even more unworkable than it already is. Had she not won the rebate we would have paid in 15 times MORE than France over the 21 year period.

Blair initially stated "The UK rebate will remain and we will not negotiate it away - period." when this whole issue first came to the forefront of the arguement. The Prime Minister now says that can only be discussed along with reform of agricultural subsidies which hugely benefit French farmers.

All Blair has to do is use the UK's veto to block any proposed change in order to safe guard the rebate. Simple isn't it?

But I will say here and now that he'll make a pigs ear of it as he's already conceded that the rebate is up for discussion. Well done Tony ......... here's 10p for the toilet because it looks like you're going to s**t yourself again.

Originally posted by Swan_Vesta
From the £8.5 Billion we shell out to the EU we get £4 Billion in subsidies and the £3 Billion rebate is to balance out the fact that if it was not there we would be the highest contributing country in the union. To relinquish the EU rebate to Chirac means that we would effectively be one of the highest contributing but lowest recieving countries.

As I remember it Mrs Thatcher fought long and hard for it and rightly so as it would mean a deficit which would certainly bring severe rammifications to our membership to the EU and make it even more unworkable than it already is. Had she not won the rebate we would have paid in 15 times MORE than France over the 21 year period.

Blair initially stated "The UK rebate will remain and we will not negotiate it away - period." when this whole issue first came to the forefront of the arguement. The Prime Minister now says that can only be discussed along with reform of agricultural subsidies which hugely benefit French farmers.

All Blair has to do is use the UK's veto to block any proposed change in order to safe guard the rebate. Simple isn't it?

But I will say here and now that he'll make a pigs ear of it as he's already conceded that the rebate is up for discussion. Well done Tony ......... here's 10p for the toilet because it looks like you're going to s**t yourself again.

Excellent points Swan Vesta.

Mrs. Thatcher did a great job in negotiating the rebate. The problem was mainly caused by Edward Heath, who cocked up our entry negotiatons, which meant that we were paying vast sums in contributions to support inefficent farmers in the rest of the EU.

Both Wilson and Callaghan had tried to re-negotiate our budget contributions, without success. Thatcher was made of sterner stuff and at the Fountainebleau European Council in 1984, she handbagged the other leaders by threatening to bring the future development of the EU to a halt unless something was done about our excalating contributions. The French continued to oppose any change, but Germany and some of the others countries agreed to it and France fell into line.

The reason why we should thank Mrs. Thatcher today is that she insisted on a veto on any change in the rebate, in perpetuity. This has meant that the rebate cannot be removed without our agreement. Well done, Mrs. T.!

But even with the rebate, we has still put in more into the EU than we have received in budget contributions in every single year since we joined in 1973. This has amounted to many £billions

Originally posted by LordChaverly

The reason why we should thank Mrs. Thatcher today is that she insisted on a veto on any change in the rebate, in perpetuity. This has meant that the rebate cannot be removed without our agreement. Well done, Mrs. T.!


Thank you LordChaverly, I find it dissapointing that Blair is more intent on grandstanding and posturing to the assembled leaders and press than actually maintaining a solid economic future for this country. I'm sure Maggie is bellowing at the TV in frustration at this buffoon jeapordising her hard work and good negotiations.

I feel that this is one lesson we could learn from the French and use the veto rather than making continual concessions. I'm sure it'll be done with his "Trust-me-I'm-sincere-and-thinking-of-our-great-nation" face along with irritating pauses and some old fashioned hand gestures to reassure the masses.

As I understand it we're not being asked to give up the rebate, just the increase in the rebate that will occur as a result of the increasing EU budget ?

Could be wrong of course ;)

That countries such as Latvia should contribute towards a British rebate is obviously wrong.

But it pales into insignificance when you take into account that 25 per cent of the entire EU budget is spent on subsidising French farmers.

we should give up our 2 billion rebate when the French give up their 7 billion subsidy for farmers.....ie NEVER.

I don't see why the UK has to fund the wastage of incompetant crooked economies of countries such as Italy or countries with vastly lower GDP than us.

Originally posted by Greenback
That countries such as Latvia should contribute towards a British rebate is obviously wrong.

But it pales into insignificance when you take into account that 25 per cent of the entire EU budget is spent on subsidising French farmers.

And it's equally wrong that we should contribute large sums of money to supporting the economies of countries that have wilfully broken the very rules that they themselves put in place.

And perhaps we should be questioning the economies of places like Latvia BEFORE they join the EU. The EU seems to be an economic 'get out of jail free' card for many nations of Europe. Whilst we should be helping them out, there has to be an element of fairness in the proceedings.

Joe

I agree Joe. I have to say that I am very, very Eurosceptic and nothing about the current debate is improving my position on the subject.

It seems the French and Germans (but in particular the French) look at Britain with barely concealed contempt.

Some of our papers are trying to make out that France is jealous of our relative economic success, but I really believe that they actually look down their noses at us. In the main they would not want to be like us, as they see us as a nation that is over-worked, under-paid and aspiring to be American.

They must hold us in contempt for their President to talk in such undiplomatic ways about us.

It makes me so angry.

Eurosceptic? Or am I xenophobic?

I really don't undersqtand why we have to pay the EU, then it pays us some back...

If we do't pay anything then we can invest it, which we do'nt goes it gets shipped to Brussels.