eurealist.co.uk

The Rebate
In a sure sign that Blair is preparing to cave in on the £3.2Billion rebate he has asked the EU leaders to postpone the negotiations until after the general election.

The Guardian says
Amid fears that Labour’s campaign could be distracted by rows over the “cheque Britannique”, he has persuaded his EU counterparts to start discussions in early May.
This will give Mr Blair, who hopes to win re-election in the expected May 5 poll, a mere six weeks to defend Margaret Thatcher’s rebate, which will come under fire at the European summit in mid-June.
The prime minister is said to be determined to pull off a deal by then because Britain’s hand will weaken over the summer. On July 1 Britain takes over the six-month presidency of the EU, making it difficult for ministers to fight their corner while they are in the chair.
Securing a deal by the end of June would allow No 10 to cast Mr Blair in the “battling for Britain” mould of Lady Thatcher when he launches the yes campaign for next year’s referendum on the EU constitution. Delaying the negotiations into 2006 would strengthen the no camp.
But senior figures are in no doubt about the real reason. “We cannot touch the budget negotiations for the moment because of a sensitivity in one well known country,” one commission official said.
Mr Blair’s deal is likely to fuel speculation that Britain is planning to water down the rebate. But sources insist that they will not agree to any change to the core principle - that Britain is compensated for the poor deal when it joined the then EEC in 1973.
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France is determined to end the hated cheque Britannique. Jacques Chirac, the French president, has reminded new members that, in common with the rest of the EU, they have to fund the rebate. This message has been heeded by some central European countries which think it is wrong that relatively poor states should, in effect, subsidise a rich one.
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Britain faces an enormous battle. Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg prime minister who is the current EU president, favours reform. He told the French daily Le Monde: “It is necessary to evaluate the reasons for the introduction of the British cheque in 1984 at the Fontainebleau summit - which I still call Fontainebluff.”
Without the rebate Britain would have paid 14 times more into the EU budget in that period than France. Britain still pays two and a half times more than France and Italy.