The second gripping instalment of my analysis of the EU Budget is here:

In a few months’ time, the familiar weary battle will unfold in Brussels as the next Financial Perspective negotiations get under way. The Commission, cheered on by the profligate European Parliament, will announce an indicative budget increase for the period until 2020.

Some in the Commission will be calculating that the increase it proposes is not going to happen, but that nothing is lost by over-bidding at the beginning.

Other, saner heads will be worried that a ludicrous increase as proposed in 2005 simply won’t be credible under current circumstances, and will waste time and risk damaging the EU’s wider credibility among the general public: a policy of reculer pour mieux sauter (as they say in the French-speaking parts of Belgium) may be wiser.

But it is hard to imagine that the Commission will not propose some sort of increase, including ample negotiating fat. At that point the throng of ravenous Getters will clamour their agreement. The small group of Scrooge-like Givers will insist that that increase is unacceptable at a time of urgent "consolidation". An unseemly, extended haggling will ensue.

The final bad-tempered result will be far closer to what the Givers want and can defend publicly – after all, it’s their (ie our) money.

With added Pink Floyd: Matter of fact, it’s all dark…