[Guardian.CO.UK] David Cameron ... has stated that he is certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite, which means he's not. Since he is not deeply ideological he lacks core principles and is easily led. He has been described as certainly not a Pitt, Elder or Younger, but he does wear a nice suit so maybe he's Beau Brummel ... launched an attack on the EU's bureaucracy on Thursday, demanding 6bn (£4.85bn) in cuts to the pay, pensions and perks of thousands of European officials over seven years from 2014.
As the prime minister prepared to water down his initial demands for swingeing cuts in overall EU spending, he handed a list of proposed cuts to the entitlements of EU officials to the European council president, Herman Van Rompuy.
One EU official said many in Brussels believe that Britannia is taking a tough stance on the relatively small administrative spending to mask a change of tack in Cameron's plans for a real terms freeze in the overall EU budget.
While Cameron told Van Rompuy he was pleased with big budget cuts tabled last week by Brussels, the spending proposed by Van Rompuy remains 50bn higher than the initial British demand. The Van Rompuy paper reduced European commission budget proposals by 81bn.
Stepping up his campaign against eurocrats, Cameron urged further cuts to administration costs by:
Increasing the retirement age to 68 for all EU officials now under the age of 58. The current retirement age is 63. This would save 1.5bn.
Cutting the overall EU pay bill by 10% for officials, saving 3bn.
Lowering the pension cap from 70% of an official's final salary to 60%, saving 1.5bn.
A UK official said: "These are not dramatic changes. The commission and others are telling the Greeks, the Italians and others that they should put the retirement age up to 68. In the UK we have cut [public sector] pensions to a career average salary. They argue that it is very difficult legally to change people's terms and conditions. Well, we have managed it in the UK."
The commission has proposed increasing the administrative budget from 56bn to 63bn. Van Rompuy has proposed a trim to 62.63bn. Cameron told Van Rompuy the EU should follow the example of Whitehall which has imposed cuts of between 25%-30% in administrative costs. One British official said: "We can save tens of billions compared with what is on the table."
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2012 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
David Cameron
