Daniel Hannan MEP berates the fact that UK contributions to the EU Budget are rising steeply at a time when all Government Departments in the UK are being forced to look for deep cuts. (Note: a terse video clip showing Mr Hannan orating in the European Parliament, a melodrama not improved by an obviously bored Jacek Kurski from Poland’s Law and Justice party ignoring the whole thing ).

What is he (Hannan) getting at?

Probably this:

The Treasury statistics show that the UK’s net contribution to the EU will increase from £4.1 billion this year to £6.4 billion in 2010/11.

The figures were published in the Treasury’s annual Community Finances statement, which was slipped out last month just before parliament broke up for its summer recess.

Aaaargh! Shock! It’s all out of control!

Er … no.

I believe the position is roughly like this.

The UK’s contributions to the EU Budget are agreed in advance in great chunks – we currently are in the 2007-2013 Financial Perspective, negotiated mainly in 2005.

During that period UK spending under some headings tends to rise. Why?

Simple. Because we wanted Poland to get a big lump of new EU money, and it necessarily takes a while for Poland to spend that money in fact. When Poland spends its money it gets a refund back from the EU pot. Ergo, it is expected that UK and other net contributors’ contributions rise accordingly at this point in the Budget cycle.

In other words, to blather on about a jump in EU spending now is mainly junk populism. We are simply paying out what we promised in 2005, more or less on schedule, within the ceiling of that promise. The Treasury will have factored all that in to their long-term numbers.

Plus the Treasury will be quietly counting on the fact that a goodly slice of Polish and other EU spending will not get done in time, so money will be slipp’d back to the UK in due course from the EU pot.

In short, nothing much to see here folks, move along.

The real issue is quite different. At a time when HM Government is trying to make cuts in public expenditure to help deal with soaraway public debt (Note: what the hell is a ‘cut’ anyway?), what is its attitude towards the next EU Financial Perspective negotiations now coming into view?

Because any increase in our total contributions to the EU under these circumstances will be a real set-back, if not a disgrace.

This is the big one to watch. Open Europe:

UK Chancellor George Osborne has already sent a clear message to his colleagues in the EU.

"We are not going to give way on the rebate, and people had better know that at the beginning of the process, because they’ll certainly discover it at the end", he said earlier in the week.

Sounds good and tough?

No. No!

Because the UK Rebate is a red herring.

What counts is the total lump of money we pay into the collective pot, not how it is calculated.

I’d be much happier if the Chancellor were demanding a (say) 25% cut in the EU’s total spending over the next Financial Perspective period, but saying that in any case there will be a cut of 25% in the UK’s contribution to that collective pot – if others want to pay a lot more to keep that pot full to current levels, fine by us.

To be continued.

In the meantime, it alas takes a senior Frenchman to tell Europe the truth. Namely that the EU as currently configured is top-heavy and doomed to fail.

Come on, UK Conservatives. Start to think strategically and show some hard-headed policy leadership on this one. Things are going our way. Who knows, this might even be popular with the British public.

Or is the Europhiliac LibDem part of the Coalition leaving you comfortably numb?