mr president there is an anecdote going around the bazaars of karachi roughly as follows
a thief holds up the president of pakistan and says i want your money
the president of pakistan says i am president zardari your president
the thief says in that case i want my money this is relevant to the debate today because it emphasises the key point
the european commission has no money
all the commission's money comes from the taxpayers of the member states or to be precise the taxpayers of the fourteen member states which are net contributors
even if the commission gets its own resources some time which on the basis of the votes earlier today looks depressingly likely the money spent by the commission would still be money from taxpayers
i therefore leave you and ask you to consider very carefully this question can you really suppose that hard-pressed european taxpayers and uk taxpayers especially in today's environment really want an extra eur two billion to be spent because that is what these proposals provide for just so that the eu commissioner can strut about on the world stage
