EU cannot be serious...

I consider myself to be a pretty moderate Conservative. Although I'm broadly against the vast amount of bureaucracy that hits us from Brussels on a regular basis, I also see the benefits of remaining within the European Union and so am not often prone to fits of Euroskepticism.

That said, they're really pushing my patience at the moment with the news that they are trying to increase member states' contributions to the EU by 6%. A 6% rise in the money we give at a time when the majority of the EU states are under immense financial pressure? Thank you Herman van Rompuy!

The proposed rise lead to interesting scenes in Parliament yesterday, when 37 Conservative MPs supported an amendment by Douglas Carswell to reduce our payment to the EU. In doing so these MPs defied the Government whip, which was calling for support for an amendment to merely freeze the payment (which later passed).

I understand the Government's position on not being able to reduce our payment to the EU. According to Treasury Minister - the excellent Justine Greening - under the EU's own laws, this is illegal (see what they've done there?!) At the very least, I am glad that this Government is taking a sensible stance on Europe. It remains to be seen how our MEPs will react (particularly, as the Spectator blog mentions, the Labour MEPs), but I hope that the EU finally sees sense. In the 'age of austerity' Europe currently finds itself in, this is no time to start taking more money from countries facing difficult financial decisions on national services.

+++UPDATE+++

Interesting. I see from ConservativeHome that Justine Greening actually wanted to go further:

"We want to see the 2011 budget cut. The problem with the amendment is that if we withdrew our money from the EU, under its terms that would be illegal. We cannot support an amendment that would make our action illegal, so we will have to reject it, but I can tell my hon. Friend that if he had worded the provision slightly differently, we might well have been able to support both amendments. It is with regret that we have to reject his amendment, despite agreeing with its sentiments."