The Nasty World Of Deception Between The UK And EU.
The concealed payments to the EU which you are about to read about will even continue to be paid by HM Treasury to the EU after December when the Transition Period is supposed to end.
I have been warning about the sums being paid by HM Treasury to the EU, without these sums ever appearing on the official HM Treasury statements as part of our net contributions. They have been paid directly to the EU Commission and to the European Investment Bank.
These payments relate to EU funds which the EU describes as “off-budget”. We should describe them as “off-the-books” because this is in effect is what they are. They are, however, officially documented and there is a record of these transactions. Below I provide my latest summary of these “off-the-books” payments to the EU and reveal how they will continue even after the Transition Period ends.
The UK’s hidden payments to the EU
£8.5 billion paid to the EU since 2008 has never been counted by HM Treasury in the total of UK contributions
This UK taxpayer money bypasses the official EU budget, but it has been paid to the EU nonetheless
“Off-the-books” EU payments will continue for more than a decade after we leave at the end of this year
What are these “off-the-books” EU funds?
European Development Fund, 10th Fund — € 22.7 bn
European Development Fund, 1th Fund — € 30.5 bn
Facility for Refugees in Turkey, Tranche 1 — € 3.0 bn
Facility for Refugees in Turkey, Tranche 2 — € 3.0 bn
Emergency EU Trust Fund for Africa — € 0.6 bn
TOTAL SINCE 2008: € 59.8 BILLION (Approx £52 BILLION GBP)
These funds relate to the 12-year period 2008–2020, but there are similar funds which go back much further.
The current “off-the-books” EDF fund which the EU is running today amounts to €30.5 billion.
Here is what the UK has been paying to the EU
European Development Fund, 10th Fund. £4,216,465,080
Facility for Refugees in Turkey, Tranche 1 £288,749,998
Facility for Refugees in Turkey, Tranche 2 £18,889,114.
Emergency EU Trust Fund for Africa £18,889,114.
Please note that neither the EU Commission nor the Dept for International Development is apparently able to forecast the number of further payments to these EU funds beyond 2022. The one thing I do know is that payments to these EU funds have generally continued for up to 10 years after the funds have ostensibly closed.
Also, the time periods used by DFID, HM Treasury, and the House of Commons Library do not match up with the actual time periods for these EU funds as defined in Brussels. I have done the best to present as true a picture as possible to the Government’s position, although I believe the real position may be worse.
It must be remembered that Theresa May’s and Ollie Robbins’s Withdrawal Agreement was not changed by Boris Johnson and his team in late 2019 except for the Northern Ireland Protocol.
The statement below from the NAO therefore still stands.
NATIONAL AUDIT OFFICE REPORT, 2018
“HM Treasury’s estimate [of payments to the EU] does not include the commitment deriving from the Withdrawal Agreement that the UK will continue to participate in the current European Development Fund (EDF), which covers the period from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2020.”
“The EDF is the European Union’s (EU’s) main instrument for providing development aid. HM Treasury expects the UK to make payments worth €3.3 billion (£2.9 billion) after the UK’s withdrawal, with payments forecast to continue until 2026.”
“The government considers this commitment to be outside the financial settlement because the EDF is not established under the EU treaties and sits outside the EU budget. It also expects to meet these commitments through existing legislation rather than the EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill, which gives the government authority to make financial settlement payments.”
National Audit Office, 2018 report
Remainer May secretly continued to commit UK taxpayers to more EU contributions
The National Audit Office did not mention the fact that the then Prime Minister, Theresa May, was still signing up the UK to continued “off-the-books” payments to the EU, AFTER the British people had voted to leave the EU in the Referendum of June 2016.
The second tranche of Angela Merkel’s “Facility for Refugees in Turkey” was agreed at the EU Council Summit of June 2018, but Prime Minister May never mentioned it in her Summit report to MPs in Parliament [Source: Hansard.]
How much is the UK paying compared to the other EU countries?
According to the EU Parliament, the UK is financing the largest of these “off-the-books” EU funds — the “European Development Fund” (EDF) — by far more than other EU countries.
10th EDF — 14.82%
11th EDF — 14.68%
These are huge percentages for one country amongst 28 countries to bear — particularly for a country whose people have voted to leave.
When it comes to the Facility for Refugees in Turkey the situation gets even more shocking
This EU fund was devised by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in late 2015 to encourage President Erdogan of Turkey to stem the flow of migrants flooding into the EU as a result of Frau Merkel’s disastrous ‘all welcome here’ policy.
This specifically relates to a Schengen problem. The Schengen agreement defined the supposedly borderless area of the EU. The UK is not and never has been part of Schengen. Nevertheless, the UK Government agreed in 2016 to pay 16.5% of the first €3 billion funds for the Turkish government. At its summit in June 2018, the EU Council formally considered the second tranche of €3 billion and approved it.
That makes a total of €6 billion for the EU’s Turkey Fund alone
€2 billion of this comes from the EU budget into which the UK still makes its annual contributions. The remaining €4 billion is in effect voluntary and is “off-the-books”. It is not in the EU Treaties nor in the approved EU budget and it was requested to come from individual member states. Prime Minister David Cameron voluntarily agreed to the first tranche of this in early 2016.
Prime Minister Mrs May then voluntarily agreed to the second tranche of it, despite the British public having voted to leave the EU and the country being (ostensibly) only nine months away from leaving the EU. The additional voluntary contribution from the UK was circa €330 million euros.
As an indication of the problems Angela Merkel brought upon her country and subsequently on the whole of the EU for years, the enormous rise in spending in Germany on refugees following Frau Merkel’s astonishing “Wir schaffen das” (We can do it) policy is astonishing.
Naturally, the BBC has had no interest in these revelations about all these off-budget payments to Brussels which have no basis in EU Treaty law. And yes, I do have a list of the payments, and no, they do not make for pretty reading.
We now live in a Coronavirus apocalyptic world where the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) — set up by former Chancellor and arch-Remainer George Osborne — is telling us all that we’re facing a 35% drop in GDP this quarter.
This OBR ‘prediction/scenario’ is something that no-one reading this article has faced in their entire lifetimes. Not even close. It makes the 2008 crash look like an occasion to break lockdown rules, pop the champagne, and have a party.
Okay, so the OBR has a forecasting record almost as abysmally-bad as that of HM Treasury, but it doesn’t take a Cray supercomputer to figure out that the Coronavirus lockdown being imposed on us all is currently trashing our economy.
In the Coronavirus-induced crash, money matters
At times like these, every £100 million the Government can spend is vital. It can have a real effect on people’s lives, whether it be used for buying PPE equipment to protect frontline health workers, or for payments to hard-working, self-employed people who will not otherwise be able to pay their bills at the end of the month.
To report on £8.5 BILLION POUNDS of expenditure being wasted on the EU gives me no pleasure whatsoever.
I would just remind Boris Johnson and his Ministers and Uncle Tom Cobbly and all of one thing. The rules of the EU Treaty on leaving the EU say that
“The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.”
There is nothing in Article 50 about having to make voluntary, off-the-books payments to the EU for years after we have left.
It is for reasons such as this, as well as many reasons more like them, that the United Kingdom absolutely MUST extricate itself finally from this dysfunctional and totalitarian nightmare called the EU at the earliest opportunity.
Just because COVID 19 is all in our minds we must never forget that we have left the EU and are in a period of transition that ends on December 31. We are well into April and just a few weeks from June when our government has the last chance for asking for an extension. It's looking as if the government is holding fast to the promise it won't be asking for one. To be honest, WHY would we need one the whole of Europe, in fact, the whole world never mind the EU will all be in the same boat, once the answer to this virus is found it will be all systems go for everyone. What's the point of being tied down by the dysfunctional and totalitarian idiocy named the EU. It will be a race to the top spot.
Something new
I am working on something at the moment to do with Covid19. When I have all my ducks in a row with as usual links to the story it will be fascinating to read. It will cover the outbreak in China, the spread of it to Europe and the US why such countrys such as India with its large population has not seen as much of it. Why Africa has not seen much of it. It will show hospitals in both the UK and the US empty, with just a few wards with COVID19 victims in them. The key to such a story is, of course, links by reputable outlets and not MSM who can't be trusted as far as we all can spit, so what you will read you can check for yourself at any time. It takes time and a lot of effort to sift through government files but very rewarding. A few months ago I wrote an article on how much we British pay in VAT along with our subscription to the EU. Speculation was rife even between MPs of all parties. Buried deep in our Government treasury files was the exact amount. It took days to find the amount when I found it, it was like a Eurica moment. The key to any true story is to find the irrefutable proof when you do that no one can argue that it's not true, something I have done on many occasion over the last three years or more, much to the resentment of Remainers who have no were to turn when they are shown the proof of the pudding.
Sources: EU Commission | HM Treasury | Office for Budget Responsibility | House of Commons Library | EU Parliament
