And so the E.U. squabbling starts over the fiscal black hole ?

I have heard/seen snippets of this over the last few weeks, it will be very interesting indeed.

No wonder they didn’t want us to leave !

I understand we are/were one of the highest financial contributors.

It will be very interesting to see how things pan out over the years, especially with poorer countries clamouring to join.

Roll on December 31st !

It was only ever about this.

I believe we were the second biggest contributer after Germany.

Don't forget many countries Never put money in. Like Poland, yet they has a lot of nasty things to say about us leaving.....no doubt because their free ride is over.

Watch the proverbial hit the fan now ?

Pinkquartz
There's a lot of bad feeling towards Brussels from the Poles.
This might be their turning point especially when they are told "ok, you've had your free ride, it's payback time"

I'm genuinely surprised the EU has waited until now to begin thinking about how they'll manage this financial deficit. Could this be because they never really believed we would leave?

Smileless
You've got it in 1. They never believed for one second that it would come to this. Well, surprise surprise, it has ?

They are betting on us having a Bre--shut--lite.

I don’t understand the glee in causing a mess for others to clean up. I also can’t understand why those EU haters are still bogging on about the EU when we are not in it. Why do you care? Many predict the EU 27 will have to reform but will emerge stronger. So that’s the other side of the coin.

I think Smileness it’s got more to do with the calendar, rather than Brexit. Every 7yrs the EU get together to thrash out their fiscal policy for the next 7yrs. This time around it’s going to be a somewhat bruising experience for egos and wallets.

No glee from me vegansrock merely interest in following the situation and seeing how it unfolds. This is their problem not ours.

We voted to leave the EU vegansrock and they've been aware of the referendum result for as long as we have. If they are now only addressing the financial deficit that our decision to leave results in, that's a mess of their making, not ours.

I voted for Brexit but that doesn't make me an EU hater.

I understand that Urmstongran but still wonder why they haven't given this some thought until now. It's a substantial amount of money to 'find' and they knew it was coming.

Apologies Smileness for attempting teaching to teach a grandmother to suck eggs! Ha!
?

No worries

As a non EU HATER , more an individual who is interested in politics.

I mentioned on another thread a short while back I had been watching ' live ' debates coming from the EU Parliament on BBC Parliament and there certainly were varying, at times quite disagreeable comments coming from the different Member States MEP's and the political groups which make up the EU Parliament.

There is a problem re funding in the EU and that is widely recognized, obvious. I only hope that the EU Commission and the EU Trade Negotiators were listening hard to some of their MEP's because this is a time both the UK and The EU must hold mature, pragmatic discussions and stop putting politics before trade because if we are not careful BOTH parties will be losers.

"The UK and EU must hold mature, pragmatic discussion and stop putting politics before trade because if we are not careful BOTH parties will be losers" yes indeed POGS.

Smileless

Slightly off-piste but this an interesting concept . It probably won't happen or be allowed to happen unilaterally in the EU.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/18/portugal-uk-tourists-post-brexit-healthcare-ehic

Extract:-
Portugal is considering offering British tourists subsidised post-Brexit healthcare in an effort to retain their custom in the Algarve, Lisbon and beyond.

It is one of several novel measures being considered by the Portuguese government in an effort to minimise the disruption of Brexit to its economy.

Rita Marques, the tourism minister, said the country was examining a unilateral offer to ensure cover offered by the European health insurance card (Ehic), the EU reciprocal system, can continue if a deal is not struck on it during this year’s trade talks.

Portugal plans special lanes for Britons in airports after Brexit

She said: “The Portuguese and the UK are the oldest allies in the world and no matter what happens the Portuguese will stand by the British. The British traveller is very important to us.

“We are looking to guarantee this health cover next year. We are currently looking at how often it is used and if it is making a positive impact. We are in the process of testing this and the other ideas right now.

“If these are issues that are important to the British traveller, then we have to go for it. We are trying to minimise the disruption to British tourism.”
--

As I said I doubt it will happen because the EU would not allow a Member State to do so unilaterally. It is however another pointer as to the variances between the EU Commission and the EU Parliament and some Member States.

Well the EU has not been able to agree over the 7 year Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), sometimes known as the financial perspective.

Having watched some of the debate as mentioned earlier and on another thread this does not surprise me one bit.

The £65 - £70 million black hole left by the UK leaving the EU was naturally an issue but Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands and Austria, known as the ' frugal' States were not prepared to lose their rebates and the others such as Germany and France were not prepared to pay more.

France's Emmanuel Macron said it showed "we don't need Britain to show disunity".

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51594002

The trillion euro war chest sets out funds for the seven years from 2021. It will be the first without UK payments since Britain joined the bloc.

That poses Brussels with a problem, or to be more specific, 75 billion euros of them.

The Brexit shortfall has left richer EU countries facing steep increases in their payments to make up the gap, at a time when the bloc needs funds to fight climate change, migration and development.

With farmers on the march in Spain, the Netherlands, Latvia, France and others, proposed cuts to the Common Agricultural Policy of subsidies are politically difficult to agree.

This won’t be easy. Further talks are scheduled for next month.

The EU have been looking for some time at measures to make sure that companies such as Google pay the correct taxes for the business they do. If they can get this money paid it will fill the hole fine.

When the end of the transition period comes Google intend to give/sell information on U.K. users to USA - the EU stopped them doing this but of course have a lot more clout.

It may also be that the mobile phone operators can bring back roaming charges etc to U.K. phones - let’s hope not because they were very high when they were last allowed to do it.

One way they could save money as a bloc for starters, they might want to end the ludicrous movement of the EU parliament from Brussels to Strasbourg once a month. Scrap the commission and the huge pointless bureaucracy. And undertake an audit to see where the EU taxpayers money is going.

How would the laws and directives be actually written and passed etc without the so called beaurocracy - the equivalent of the British Civil Service.
The percentage of GDP paid to Brussels each year - the U.K. paid about 1% so I doubt that many other countries paid a lot more. The figures they quote with anything are so huge they are difficult to comprehend for any country or service such as the NHS - much better to look at the percentages and then you see how the finances are divided up.

Just curious. Why do most of your longer posts sound as though they are cut and pasted from newspaper articles, Ug?