00:00Well, the European Union in serious crisis when it comes to this proposed 2 trillion euro budget
00:07and Ireland actually pushing back against the extent of this budget, potentially derailing
00:14this whole EU plan. Because what you're now seeing with the UK cash cow, of course, no longer
00:19in the block, countries, governments are being asked to cough up more and more money. And you
00:27can see here the likes of Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Austria, Finland and Sweden saying
00:32that this proposed budget of 2 trillion euros should be reduced. Germany pushing very, very
00:40hard for a reduction of 400 billion euros. Such is the pressure, the financial pressure on Germany
00:47within the European Union now. So in terms of Ireland, what they've said, because they hold
00:53the rotating presidency of the EU, is they're pitching cuts of more than 140 billion euros.
01:02So in effect, that would be an 8% cut to this proposed 2028 to 2034 budget. You know, these
01:08are astronomical sums, aren't they, when you think about it, for something that was supposedly
01:13a trade bloc at once upon a time. But even that Irish proposal for the cut would still
01:21be a 30% increase on the size of the EU budget, even after the 8% cut of cutting
01:29141 billion
01:31euros. So these are astronomical amounts of money. Ireland pushing back a little bit on the
01:37extent of this now. And you can see those who contribute financially to the European Union,
01:43our net contributors, are not very keen on this. Now what's really interesting is seeing elected
01:49governments being lectured by the EU Commission, warning, you know, telling governments, the
01:57EU here, that they shouldn't be scrapping billions from the EU budget. It should go ahead with that
02:052 trillion euro figure, and pushing back against the plan from Ireland to have some cuts, including
02:14just a loan on foreign aid here, cutting 38 billion euros from foreign aid. I mean, goodness me, what will
02:21taxpayers across Europe make of that? But the EU don't even want to cut that. And back to Germany here,
02:27Germany actually saying on the other side of things, that the Irish proposal isn't enough
02:34of a cut for them to agree to. They want to see a much larger cut to the EU budget
02:41than even this
02:41Irish proposal. And you can see there, those in Sweden describing this all as wildly unaffordable in
02:48terms of this increase. Also, their Austria pushing back as well. And it just shows you, I think,
02:55how utterly out of control this entire European Union project is when you look at the vast sums
03:03that now combine into the EU budget. Please do let me know, though, your thoughts on that in the
03:08comments below. Please do whack this video a quick thumbs up. And of course, as ever, cheers for watching.
