UK’s Cameron initiates long-term budget freeze for EU

British Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday told journalists that on Saturday he will send a letter together with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy warning the EU that they will propose a long-term freeze of the European Union’s budget. Budget talks for the EU’s long-term budget are due to start next year. David Cameron said Friday that the UK, Germany and France will propose that the European Union annual budgets increase by no more than in real terms over the 2014 to 2020 period. “What is different to perhaps in the past is that quite early on in this process, the French and the Germans and the British have come together and said look we have really got to get control of this budget, we cannot see it going up and up and up,” he said after a meeting of EU leaders. “I don’t think that is an old alliance, I think that is a new point being made by some old friends who are coming together in a very new and positive way,” he said. The prime minister also reiterated that his government would like to see restraint in the size of bankers’ bonuses given the support the financial sector has received from taxpayers’ money during the economic difficulties of recent years. “I do believe in social responsibility–that people have to think of their responsibilities when they make these decisions and of course every decision like that, that banks make, make it more difficult to keep a tax regime that they might favor,” he said.