David Cameron at European Council
On day 2 of European Council budget negotiations, David Cameron has continued to call for more radical proposals to rein in EU spending
Arriving for the next stage of negotiations, Mr Cameron said this morning:
Well I don’t think there’s been enough progress so far.
There really is a problem that there hasn’t been the progress in cutting back proposals for additional spending.
It isn’t the time for tinkering. It isn’t the time for moving money from one part of the budget to another. We need unaffordable spending, cut. That’s what’s happening at home and that’s what needs to happen here.
Prime Minister David Cameron is attending the European Council in Brussels, where leaders are meetings for budget negotiations. Yesterday, Mr Cameron met with European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso and European Council president - and summit chairman - Herman Van Rompuy before the talks began. Read a statement issued by Downing Street following the meeting.
As he arrived in Brussels yesterday, the Prime Minister made clear he was calling for restraint in EU spending.
Speaking yesterday morning, Mr Cameron said:
These are very important negotiations. Clearly at a time when we are making difficult decisions at home over public spending it would be quite wrong - it is quite wrong - for there to be proposals for this increased extra spending in the EU.
So we are going to be negotiating very hard for a good deal for Britain’s taxpayers, for Europe’s taxpayers, and to keep the British rebate.