EU Leaders Insist UK Pays Its Brexit Bills

Date: 30 April 2017 - 20:40

News ID: ۳۸۹۵۹

LONDON (The Guardian) - EU leaders have toughened their stance on Britain paying its Brexit bills when they agreed negotiating guidelines at a special summit on Saturday.
EU diplomats have agreed unanimously that Britain must settle its bills before embarking on trade talks. The position has been set out by EU leaders from the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, to the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, but this was the toughest statement yet from all 27 countries.
"Member states are maximalist on the budget issue, because if Britain doesn’t pay, other member states will have to pay,” an EU diplomat said. Another senior diplomat said he had never seen net payers and recipients "working so closely with each other” in a wry allusion to the perennial tensions between countries that pay most into the EU budget and those that receive the biggest grants.
The UK is due to make a net payment of around £20.4bn into the EU pot in 2019-20, in line with a promise David Cameron made in 2012 when he negotiated the EU’s seven-year budget. The European commission, however, believes the bill could come to as much as €60bn (£50bn) once the UK’s contribution to EU liabilities, pensions and special funds is taken into account.
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