Barroso says UK bill should not have been 'surprise'

(BRUSSELS) - Britain should have been prepared for an EU bill of more than two billion euros that has infuriated London, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Friday.

"This should not have come as a surprise for member states," Barroso told reporters after Prime Minister David Cameron angrily refused to pay the backdated charges.

Barroso said the figure of 2.1 billion euros ($2.6 billion) is based on statistics about its economy that Britain itself gave the European Commission, the EU's executive arm.

The "mathematics" are based on mechanisms the member states have "agreed on unanimously," he said when asked for a reaction to Cameron's fury over the matter.

"We have been careful not to politicize the process we have been asked to administer," Barroso said.

Cameron insisted repeatedly that Britain, one of the largest contributors to the EU budget, had been treated unacceptably, with the demand coming virtually out of the blue from the European Commission.

The new bills are based on a revision in the way in which the economic output of EU states is measured to include previously hidden elements such as drugs and prostitution, and the overall economic situation of each country.

Cameron demanded an emergency meeting of finance ministers which Barroso said had been agreed to in order to provide the necessary information.