Brussels slashes €6.7bn price tag for UK to join EU defence fund
https://www.ft.com/content/ba8875e3-1119-4472-b0ba-0dbc302f3370
Posted by Gentle_Snail
Brussels slashes €6.7bn price tag for UK to join EU defence fund
https://www.ft.com/content/ba8875e3-1119-4472-b0ba-0dbc302f3370
Posted by Gentle_Snail
13 Comments
>The European Commission has slashed its €6.7bn demand for the UK to join its multibillion-euro rearmament programme by more than two-thirds, amid growing internal divisions in the EU over the terms of British participation.
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>Two diplomats briefed on the discussion said the commission had now put a €2bn price tag on the UK taking part in the €140bn Security Action for Europe (Safe) loan guarantee scheme designed to help boost European defence spending.
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>The reduced figure is still far above the €75mn the UK has offered to join the programme, with pressure mounting on both sides to cut a deal by the November 30 deadline.
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>.. The commission’s pared back offer comes amid heightened divisions among EU member states about the handling of the negotiations that followed the agreement of an EU-UK “reset” at a joint summit in Windsor last May.
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>One EU diplomat described the commission’s original demand of up to €6.7bn as “completely and utterly ridiculous”, warning that failure of the EU to reach an agreement with a key Nato ally would be a serious embarrassment.
Is there actually anything to stop EU governments behaving as follows?
They have 2 pots of money, X and Y. Y is the new borrowing which has to be spent in certain ways and X is their own military budget which they can spend however they want. They were going to do a certain amount of procurement out of X anyway. They allocate any spending they want to do with Britain to pot X and reallocate from X to Y any spending they were going to fund from X originally but which qualifies for pot Y.
If not then don’t give them a penny. If so then maybe give them a few pennies.
It’s almost like they’re plucking figures out of the air…
*6bn guv, a bargain!*
*No…*
*Okay, 4bn*
*No..*
*2bn?…*
So the UK needs to win enough business to generate at least 2bn in profit to make it worth it, right? And if so I wonder how viable / likely that is.
The UK is currently assisting Belgium with their Russian drone problem they can’t deal with but they can always treat us like mugs if money is involved.
I wouldn’t bother. We pay them money and then they don’t buy any of our equipment.
Not paying them any money gets the same outcome.
I can’t see what they would want to buy from us. That they don’t manufacture themselves.
The EU misses us paying into their Budget and are trying to claw it back through other means. The problem is that it isn’t fair to do that with a defence agreement; security is not a negotiation game.
How much did South Korea and Japan have to pay in to get access?
Honestly our take it or leave negotiations seem to be working well so far.
I honestly think our government feels confident currently off the back of the warship purchases from Norway, that we are an attractive defence supplier regardless of being schemes such as this. Playing hardline with the EU seems to actually work somewhat when we have cards to play.
We don’t have them over a metaphorical barrel, however they don’t have us over one either.
And here we are.
Realistically the Europeans were going to try and make us pay through the nose. And we were going to try and get in scott free.
It was always going to be a negotiated settlement somewhere in between.
Still too high. They are literally just seeing what they can get.
I think now might be a good time to say no and just walk away, the principle we need to set is that we will not pay a premium to support other countries defence. Invest the money directly into defence capital expenditure instead.
There shouldn’t be a “price tag” at all, it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement and we need to stop allowing the EU to take us for a ride. Aren’t they supposed to be friends and allies?