Why is a “trading bloc” spending £110 BILLION of taxpayer money outside its borders?
Let's bust the myth that the EU is about trade and the economy.
“No deal”, “crashing out”, “cliff edge”, “destroying our jobs and economy”…. Does this sound all too familiar? Remain MPs can’t seem to stop talking doom and gloom about the UK’s exit from the EU on a clean, managed WTO-terms basis.
These MPs’ threats — unsupported by any facts — relate to British people’s jobs and the economy. But what do the Remain MPs really know about the EU and what it does? Here I provide just one example of how the EU is about the pursuit of power, not looking after the financial wellbeing of British and other EU citizens.
The EU spending the UK’s money outside the EU
- ‘EU External Action Service’ (EEAS): new budget for 2021–2027 of £110 billion
2. This is a 30% increase on the previous budget of £84 billion
3. Operational control: Unelected Vice-President & ex-Communist Federica Mogherini
4. None of this has anything to do with maintaining UK jobs and the UK economy
The EU plans to spend £110 BILLION of taxpayer money outside the EU
The unelected EU Commission drew up its budgetary plans one year ago, for the post-2020 period. Whilst these are still going through the review and approvals process, it is unlikely that they will change much from what we are showing below.
These are monies coming from taxes of EU citizens of the few countries who are net contributors to the EU, including the UK if Remain MPs get their way, and they will all be spent outside the borders of the EU.
Important note: There are many more funds which will be spent outside the EU’s borders, so consider this to be a very conservative summary. I am only reporting on one substantial budget item coming under the control of the ‘European External Action Service’, led by unelected former Communist and EU Vice-President Federica Mogherini.
Where is the EU planning to spend all these billions?
To keep things simple I will only cite the two biggest elements of this ‘External Action’ budget, which together make up 84% of the total.
Here are the two examples
1. “Neighbourhood, development and international cooperation instrument” — €89.2 billion
- ‘Neighbourhood’ — Essentially non-EU Europe & North Africa — €22 billion
- Sub-Saharan Africa — €32 billion
- Asia & the Pacific — €10 billion
- Americas & the Caribbean — €4 billion
2. “Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance” — €14.5 billion
Support for EU candidate countries and potential candidates.
The EU gives taxpayers’ money in subsidies, in order for them to become new EU member states. The countries qualifying for ‘Pre-Accession Assistance’ currently include Turkey, Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia.
Note: These figures above vary slightly, according to which EU document you are looking at.
Who controls this vast budget?
The operational control of this budget currently falls under the EU’s ‘European External Action Service’, an organisation headed by a woman with many job titles.
Federica Mogherini
Italian Federica Mogherini was appointed by Jean-Claude Juncker. She is an EU Commissioner and one of the two Vice-Presidents of the EU Commission. She is also ‘High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy’. In effect, Ms. Mogherini is the de facto EU Defence Secretary, EU Foreign Secretary, and EU International Development Secretary all rolled into one.
Federica Mogherini is the most powerful woman in the whole of the EU’s massive bureaucracy. She was appointed to her EU roles, never elected.
She studied political science in Italy and France and did her dissertation on Islam. She spent the first eight years of her political life as a member of the Italian Communist Youth Federation and only changed to become a member of the Youth Left when the Italian Communist Party dissolved. She has only ever worked in politics.
This is about unelected Brussels bureaucrats and their pursuit of personal, global power this how the EU also takes UK taxpayer money to satisfy its agenda for global power outside its own borders.
The EU has something called the ‘European Union Global Strategy’. Remain MPs may not have heard of it. They certainly haven’t been given the opportunity to debate it in the House of Commons.
Readers might think that this is something of… how shall I put this politely… an omission? They might quite reasonably think that if the EU is to have global ambitions, then our MPs would have been consulted and would have been able to contribute to the formulation of this strategy.
Afraid not.
But isn’t the UK one of the three biggest donors of international aid anyway?
Yes, it is. In fact, for decades the UK has been the second most-generous country in the world after the USA, according to the official figures from the OECD who monitor these things.
It was only last year that Germany pipped second-place from the UK, but only by virtue of including some of the costs of integrating its influx of 2 million migrants into Germany. I do not consider this to be an international aid. I consider it to be the cost of Angela Merkel’s disastrous 2015 policy of opening its borders.
Whither OUR sovereignty and democracy?
The British people voted in 2016 to take back control. A key aspect of the Brexit vote — the largest in British political history — was about sovereignty and democracy.
If and when the Government finally delivers Brexit, it will mean that decisions about where the British people should devote some of their wealth will be made by their elected representatives in Parliament, not by some unelected bureaucrats in Brussels whom most ordinary people have never heard of.
[ Sources: EEAS | EU Commission | OECD ]
