Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-05-Speech-3-017"
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"en.20060405.3.3-017"2
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".
Mr President, I feel, having listened to what has been said this morning, that the European Parliament is once again indulging in its favourite sport and pastime, that of navel gazing. All we are really discussing are the minutiae of interinstitutional agreements – or perhaps at this stage one should say ‘disagreements’ – but are we addressing the real issues of the European Union budget? Is anybody prepared to really talk about the fact that the auditors have refused to sign off the accounts for 11 years in a row? Does anybody here want to have a bet with me that it will not be 12 years in a row, or perhaps 13 or 14? The whole thing is fatally flawed, is it not? We have a budget system that is overly complicated, but my question is: do we need a budget at all?
Well, Mr Blair, having collapsed in the negotiations, having been totally outwitted, outclassed and outplayed by President Chirac, has signed a really rather bad deal for the British taxpayer. And now a majority of British people are asking: ‘why are we paying GBP 39 million a day into an organisation which cannot sign off its own accounts’? Why should British taxpayers be helping to build a new underground system in Warsaw and new sewers in Budapest? Why are we paying all this money to a group of countries that sell us far more than we sell them?
Surely, to subsidise your economic competitors is the economics of the madhouse! Nobody sensible would indulge in it. So it will not be very long, Mr President, before the British are not going to be paying any money into the European Union. I know that all of you have benefited for the last 30 years, but I apologise in advance. There will be no British cheque coming to any of you within a few years, but we have enjoyed ourselves whilst we have been here."@en1
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