British discount

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The British discount (also British bonus or British check , officially UK compensation ) is a regulation for the budget of the European Union that grants the United Kingdom a special status compared to other EU members.

history

The agreement was passed by the European Council in 1984 at the instigation of then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ; it gives the UK a discount on its contributions. This is done by calculating how much the United Kingdom pays into the European Union's budget and how much of it flows back into the United Kingdom (through subsidies, subsidies, etc.). As a rule, more is deposited than is returned, so the United Kingdom is a so-called net payer . The discount is 66 percent of the net premium. It reached its peak in 2001 with around 7.3 billion euros; In 2005 this discount was around 5.2 billion euros. Overall, the discount between 1985 and 2014 added up to over 111 billion euros.

The reason for the regulation was that British agriculture was then smaller than that of the other EC countries, which is why Great Britain and Northern Ireland could not benefit from the agricultural subsidies of the Common Agricultural Policy to the same extent as France or Germany, for example . Another argument was the low level of prosperity in the United Kingdom in 1984 in comparison with the EC. The British rebate was by the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher negotiated, previously numerous in the years referring to the "British budget issue" Decisions of the European Communities blocked and thus to the so-called euro sclerosis -Crisis had contributed. The formula “ What we are asking is for a very large amount of our own money back! ”(German:“ What we ask is that we get a very large part of our own money back! ”), With which Thatcher expressed her ambitious goal during the lengthy negotiations.

As part of the negotiations on the future multiannual financial framework for the EU budget for the period 2007 to 2013, voices from other member states were increasingly voiced in June 2005 calling for the discount to be reduced or abolished. A big advocate of lowering discounts was e.g. B. the then French President Jacques Chirac . On June 14, 2005, the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council under Jean-Claude Juncker proposed freezing the UK discount at the current level and continuously reducing it from 2007, which the British government under Tony Blair rejected. In December 2005 the negotiations came to a head. Angela Merkel , German Chancellor since the 2005 Bundestag election , made a compromise proposal. On December 17, 2005, an agreement was reached that the British discount should be reduced significantly by 2013. In February 2013, the European Council decided to continue the British discount in the new multiannual financial plan of the EU (2014–2020).

Despite this agreement, not all EU members fully agreed with this regulation, as it still contained inequalities. One of the main arguments put forward was that the UK was now one of the richest EU countries. In the fall of 2012, Prime Minister David Cameron lost the annual (but not binding) vote on the European budget in parliament against a coalition of Labor, Scottish nationalists and 53 MEPs from their own parliamentary group who are calling for a freeze on the EU budget, leading to the plans for top-ups of the other EU members was in complete contradiction.

After the referendum on EU membership and the UK's plans to leave the European Union (“Brexit”), doubts were expressed as to whether the UK rebate would be extended again if the UK continued to stay in the EU or if the transition period was extended .

Discounts for other states

Based on the British discount, a discount was also introduced for four other Member States - Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Sweden - after negotiations. In view of the looming Brexit and a loophole in the EU budget, EU budget commissioner Günther Oettinger spoke out in 2017 in favor of abolishing all contribution discounts for member states.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The UK 'rebate' on the EU budget - An explanation of the abatement and other correction mechanisms . (PDF) European Parliamentary Research Service; accessed on February 24, 2016.
  2. ^ Press Conference after Dublin European Council. (Press conference after the 1979 Dublin Summit) Margaret Thatcher Foundation.
  3. ↑ Maggie Thatcher's controversial legacy . Spiegel Online , June 16, 2005
  4. ↑ Chirac wants to cancel the British discount in 2013
  5. ↑ EU summit: Merkel mediates between Chirac and Blair . Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , December 16, 2005
  6. ↑ Broker: Permit, Merkel . In: Die Zeit , No. 52/2005
  7. ↑ Angela Merkel: Building bridges on the summit . Stern.de, December 17, 2005
  8. ^ G. Weinmann: Britenrabatt | bpb. Retrieved February 2, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Maike Freund, Jessica Schwarzer: Special requests from London: The British Diva . Handelsblatt , December 12, 2011.
  10. ^ The European question divides the coalition government in London . In: Der Bund , November 2, 2012, page 3.
  11. ↑ "Without British discount" - Bundestag warns London of higher Brexit costs. In: world. January 21, 2018, accessed April 10, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Wolfgang Janisch: Can the British simply cancel Brexit? November 27, 2018, accessed April 10, 2019 .
  13. ↑ The discount from the British discount is on the collar. In: derstandard.de. 2017, accessed April 10, 2019 .