- Title: UK not ruling out continued budget payments after Brexit, Hammond says
- Date: 6th December 2016
- Summary: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (FILE - NOVEMBER 2016) (REUTERS) VARIOUS EXTERIORS OF EUROPEAN UNION COUNCIL BUILDING
- Embargoed: 21st December 2016 10:17
- Keywords: EU Brexit Ecofin market Hammond Dijsselbloem
- Location: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
- City: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
- Country: Belgium
- Reuters ID: LVA0015BQXKJR
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:British Finance Minister Philip Hammond said on Tuesday (December 6) that the government would not rule out the possibility of continuing to make payments into the European Union budget once it leaves the bloc in order to maintain good access for its exporters.
Last week, Britain's minister in charge of the Brexit process, David Davis, said paying for access to the single market was a possibility for the country's future relationship with the EU.
"We wouldn't rule out the possibility of some ongoing contribution in some form if we have an ongoing relationship and that would be something that we have to look at, looking at the costs, looking at the benefits and making a decision based on what's in the interest of the British taxpayer," Hammond said when asked about Davis' comments as he was arriving for a meeting of European Union finance ministers.
Also speaking before the meeting, the head of the group of euro zone finance ministers, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, said that Britain appeared to want the EU's benefits with none of its obligations.
Dijsselbloem, who is the finance minister of the Netherlands, added the British government's attitude towards impending talks to leave the European Union suggests that Britain's exit will not be smooth and orderly.
"It can be smooth and it can be orderly but I think it requires a different attitude on the part of the British government because the things that I've been hearing so far are incompatible with smooth, incompatible with orderly," Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem told reporters.
He warned that London would have to accept the rules and regulations of the EU internal market to have access to it.
The EU's top officials have repeatedly warned there can be no granting Britain access to the European Union's single market unless London also accepts the freedom of movement of workers that lies at its foundation. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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