Britain ready to use veto to keep EU rebate: Brown

Britain would not hesitate to use its veto to hold on to its two-decade-old rebate from the European Union budget, finance minister Gordon Brown said Sunday, as EU foreign ministers gathered in Brussels to discuss the issue.

"It's wholly justified. If we did not get the result we wanted we would not hesitate to use our veto," Chancellor of the Exchequer Brown told BBC television.

The controversial rebate -- negotiated by former prime minister Margaret Thatcher 21 years ago -- expires next year amid mounting pressure to scrap it.

The British government rejects EU proposals to freeze the annual budget rebate in 2007 and ultimately reduce it, arguing that it receives far less agricultural and regional development funding than its European counterparts.

"It is the right thing to do because we get so little of the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) receipts, we get so little of the structural and cohesion funds receipts, that our rebate is wholly justified," Brown said.

The topic is on the agenda as EU foreign ministers -- including British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw -- meet Sunday to battle over how much they pay into and get out of the collective pot.

"I was at a meeting last Saturday and made it absolutely clear that our rebate was wholly justified," Brown added, referring to EU talks in Luxembourg.

"Jack Straw is going to a meeting today and he will make that absolutely clear as well."

Straw said previously in March that his government was ready to use its veto to retain the long-cherished rebate -- worth some three billion pounds (5.5 billion dollars, 4.4 billion euros) a year.

The EU subsidies system has been modernised hugely since the rebate was first granted in 1984 -- but London insists Britain's contribution to Brussels would still be unfairly high without it.

"The reason is because France, for example, is getting high amounts of agricultural subsidies receipts. We don't," Brown added.

"Which means that without the rebate, there would be a gap which would mean that we would be paying far more than France, far more than Italy, far more than other countries."

Britain has come under fierce pressure over the highly contentious matter.

France, Germany and Poland have agreed to demand that the British rebate from the EU budget be reconsidered and changed, French President Jacques Chirac said Thursday.

Chirac said after a meeting of the heads of state from the three countries that they had agreed on the need for "fairer financing of the European budget" involving "budget discipline" and rediscussion of "the British cheque".

British Prime Minister Tony Blair received European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Friday to discuss both the European Union constitution and the status of the rebate.