Trouble at t'mill

[TheOstrich]

All of which merely goes to prove that we here were the Mugginses keeping the EU bureaucrats in financial clover ……

I weep for them not.

[Suff]

Just like us, none of these countries ever really recovered from the financial crisis.

The EU continues to want more money and a higher % of each member states finances. Over the top of this, cross EU Vat goes to the EU too. Something which was not happening before.

The problem they face is that they lured in new members with promises of stability and funds but didn't really count the cost of 28 countries but only 6 net contributors to the budget.

When they lost the UK, they lost an economy which was nearly 1/6 of the EU GDP, but they lost net contributions to the budget of between 1/4 and 1/3.

Everyone is still coning to terms with that and it is not going down well.

The bigger problem is that if you take the commission figures and spreadsheet them out, you will find that the raise from 1% to 1.1% will probably give a figure that balances the UK loss. But in order to get the same disposable cash, everyone has to pay more and get less.

This is proving somewhat unpopular... The EU parliament wants an even bigger slice of cash to waste and that 0.3% increase in money is never going to fly without every state becoming a net contributor.

It is also causing havoc with countries like Spain, the 4th largest economy in the EU (now), but a net recipient of €1bn per year. Or €7bn over the budget period.

Italy doesn't help either, third largest economy and still a net recipient. Nobody is going to try and squeeze more out of Italy as they'd just have to feed it back in the back door via another bailout or even looser easing by the ECB.

It is no wonder that the IMF, no longer headed by a French person, is estimating that the UK will outgrow the EU by at least 50% over the next decade.

[Suff]

Looking through the debris of the failed meeting elicits a highly technical article on how much the UK will contribute to the 21-27 budget.

https://www.bruegel.org/2019/12/how-muc ... eu-budget/

If we think these negotiations are going to be hard, the 28-34 negotiations are going to start another €20bn short.

Tempers will be frayed, governments will have changed and, it is likely, Germany will have a new chancellor and France a new President.

That one will be an extremely interesting spectator sport.

Sweden has another election in 2022, I will be watching that one very closely.

[cromwell]

It will be interesting to see where the Swedish democrats finish. Macron might get back in France just because of the "anyone but Le Pen" vote. Germany is totally up in the air. There may be a successor to Angela Merkel lurking in the wings but then again there might not; it wouldn't surprise me if she doesn't keep on going.