EU proposes new budget rules after row with Britain

The European Commission has on Wednesday proposed an amendment to European Union (EU) budget rules, which would allow the concerned member states to defer their increased contributions payment until Sept. 1 next year.

The move comes after this year's new budget calculation system had led to exceptionally large additional payments from some countries like Great Britain and triggered row between EU and its member states.

According to the new budget calculations, Britain was demanded to pay an extra 2.1 billion euros (2.67 billion U.S. dollars) to the EU before Dec. 1 this year because of its better-than-expected economic performance.

The Commission said the nine-month extension would kick in, if additional payment requests are over a certain threshold: for an individual member state, if they are requested to pay more than twice their regular monthly payment to the EU budget; for all countries, if the total requested adjustment is more than half of the total monthly contribution of all member states.

The Commission also mentioned part of the proposed rule change is that when requesting delayed payments, the member states must provide a binding schedule for those payments. They will then be required to pay interest if they do not respect the agreed schedule. Enditem