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It's Enough to Turn Us All Into Frothing Eurosceptics

Can it really be true that the European Commission is arguing for yet another increase in its budget? Sadly yes, says Tony McNulty.

By Tony McNulty

3 Jul 2011, 23:05

Sometimes the bureaucrats that run the European Union exhibit a breathtaking complacency that defies belief. We could be forgiven for thinking that the Commission contained a fifth column of Euro-sceptics ever ready to undermine the whole notion of the EU. As different members struggle with the consequences of the economic crisis, both inside and outside the Eurozone, the EU decides that this is the time to increase the EU’s budget to over one trillion Euros. Greece teeters on the brink – with Spain, Portugal and Ireland struggling to get through difficult times – but the Commission wants more money. There must be cross-party support to ensure that the Commission’s proposal does not prevail.

To make matters worse, the Commission’s nonsense seeks to hijack the proposals for a financial transaction tax – a Tobin or ‘Robin Hood’ tax. Most people would define the Tobin or Robin Hood tax as a charge on all financial transactions to fund public services for the public good, not a tax to pay for more euro-bureaucrats for the Commission. Is anybody really convinced that more money for Brussels will do anything for anybody in Europe? The UK Treasury estimate that the Commission’s budget will add over €100 million to EU spending over the next seven years – for what?

Much of the enthusiasm for a Tobin Tax had linked it to the development agenda – as a device to establish some balance between the developed and the developing world. Others see it as a way of restoring some balance in troubled economies between the financial sector and the provision of collective public goods and services. No-one is suggesting that we tax financial transactions, on an EU wide basis, to provide more ways for the Commission to waste public money.

Let’s have a broad and serious debate on whether or not the Tobin Tax is a good idea or not – but let’s agree that the Government is right to take on the Commission over these absurd budget proposals. It has to be said that, at the moment, the Commission is the greatest recruiting sergeant that euro-sceptics could wish for.