EU budget commissioner presses Britain on rebate

European budget commissioner Michaele Schreyer pressed Britain Wednesday to pay in full its part of the European Union budget to share the burden of EU enlargement.

There "is really no reason why the UK does not have the same share in financing structural funds, for example for Estonia or for Poland," Schreyer told a news conference in Warsaw four months after those two countries joined the EU.

In July, the European Commission proposed that rebates such as one obtained by then-British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984 be spread among several net contributors to the EU budget.

"It was very good that the United Kingdom supported so strongly the enlargement" on May 1 of 10 new members, but Britain should also assume its share of the cost, the EU budget commissioner said.

London has come under pressure from EU partners to compromise over its unique rebate from EU coffers, 20 years after Thatcher bluntly told counterparts gathered in Fontainbleau, France: "I want my money back."

EU members that contribute more to the budget then they receive argue that Britain is much richer now than it was then, while London defends its position by pointing out that it receives comparatively little from community farm aid.