Squandering EU is left red-faced over kid's colouring book branded 'pro-Europe propaganda'
A CHILDREN'S colouring book produced at huge cost by the EU was David Cameron’s weapon yesterday to crank up pressure on Brussels to stop squandering vast sums.
The Prime Minister armed himself with a copy of the booklet to point out to European leaders that pointless projects was not the way to rein in costs.
His attack came during a summit in Brussels to finalise the EU’s £780billion budget for the next seven years.
Despite austerity cuts across Europe, it emerged that Brussels bureaucrats have secured a multi-million pound increase in their pension pots.
Euro MPs have agreed to hike up spending on gold-plated pensions for thousands of EU civil servants. The fund will soar by around £100million next year to a colossal £1.28billion.
EU foreign affairs supremo Baroness Ashton will also reap a large increase for her department under the deal. Her controversial European External Action Service diplomatic corps will rake in £447million in 2014, up from £408million this year.
Bureaucrats also found the money to distribute 15,000 copies of the children’s book, described by critics as an attempt to brainwash youngsters with pro-EU propaganda, across member countries.
It contains a cringeworthy selection of colouring exercises and rosy-spectacled insights into the life of MEPs.
One picture depicts MEPs arriving at the end of a working day to pocket a tax-free £258 allowance.
The booklet also describes how each and every one of the 754 MEP gets an annual staffing allowance worth around £220,000, at a cost to taxpayers of £160million a year. Laughably, the book also explains how MEPs eat vegetables.
The booklet adds to concerns highlighted by the Daily Express about educational materials produced for schools by the European Commission that critics claim are a bid to make children feel positive about the EU.
Mr Cameron’s unusually graphic tactics came after the European Parliament dropped its resistance to the seven-year EU budget agreed in February.
Thanks to the PM’s tough negotiation, it is the first real terms cut in the budget.
Martin Callanan MEP, the leader of the European Conservatives, said: “This is an historic cut but we still have enormous amounts of fat that can be trimmed. Administration is normally the first thing to be cut in any government’s budget. Only in the EU would it increase at a time of belt-tightening.”
Ukip leader Nigel Farage said: “It is still a rotten deal for Britain. The British taxpayer has nothing to celebrate as £53million will still be leaving each day bound for Brussels. Why should we be paying a penny piece to this financially incontinent EU?”
