David Cameron today announced he had joined forces with France andGermany to demand a real-terms freeze in the EU budget until the end of the decade.
The prime minister will tomorrow publish a joint text with Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and other European leaders setting out their demand for restraint in EU spending.
They will insist that the union’s budget should rise by no more than the rate of inflation over the period 2014-20.
Speaking at a press conference at the end of the European council summit in Brussels, Cameron said the text would put down “a firm marker” of their determination not to allow the budget to swell.
The prime minister confirmed he had secured a “clear and unanimous agreement” that Britain would not be “dragged into bailing out the eurozone”, as part of a new stability mechanism to be introduced in 2013.
The UK would be part of the existing emergency mechanism until then, but because that was a commitment entered into by the former Labour government “we have to live with it”, he added.
Cameron said tomorrow’s text would cover negotiations on the EU budgets for 2012 and 2013, as well as the longer-term perspective for 2014-20. “What I am doing, together with our key partners in Europe, is putting down a firm marker for these negotiations,” he said. “All around Europe, countries are tightening their belts to deal with their deficits. Europe can’t be immune from that.
“We want to see real budgetary restraint for 2014-20 – the time of the next financial perspective. That is why the text we will publish talks about at least a real-term freeze in the budget for that period.”
He described the agreement between Britain, France and Germany as “incredibly significant” and a “huge achievement”.
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