Tories pledge to resist EU calls for £9.5bn to cover unpaid bills

The move – instantly condemned by a UK Government spokesman as unacceptable – follows a deal on the EU’s long-term budget in February which Prime Minister David Cameron hailed as the first to cut costs in real terms.

But Euro MPs warned at the time that acceptance of cuts came with a catch – more cash would be needed to cover outstanding commitments this year.

Now the European Commission has tabled a “draft amending budget” claiming the extra cash for what the budget commissioner described as “a snowballing effect of unpaid claims transferred on to the following year”.

Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski – effectively blaming Mr Cameron and others who pressed, ultimately successfully, to keep spending down in line with national restraints – said: “This (extra budget demand) cannot come as a surprise. In recent years voted EU budgets have been increasingly below the real needs based on estimates from member states.”

Mr Lewandowski went on: “The ostrich policy can only work for so long: postponing payment of a bill will not make it go away. Not one cent of the extra amount we request today is for the EU institutions. It will merely allow the EU to play its share of infrastructure or science projects that member states agreed to start in the past.”

He added: “I am confident that the Council (EU governments) and the European Parliament will deliver on their commitments to avoid any shortfall in payments and take a swift decision on this proposal.”

A Commission statement said the EU budget needed the top-up “to reimburse beneficiaries of EU-funded programmes completed across Europe in 2012 as well as to honour Cohesion Policy (money for poorest EU regions) claims that will fall due in 2013”.

The statement said the bulk of the proposed draft extra budget would, if agreed “in full” by ministers and MEPs, “allow all the legal obligations left pending at the end of 2012, as well as those arising before the end of 2013, to be covered in this year’s (2013) budget”.

But Conservative MEPs promised “fierce resistance”. Richard Ashworth, the leader of the Tory MEPs, said: “It is extraordinary that the Commission should demand an increase in the EU budget that is bigger than the rescue package that was agreed for Cyprus earlier this week.”