The EU is an organisation that requires funding. This money is partly used to pay for the paraphernalia of European politicians and their offices and parliament buildings, while rather more goes on the bureaucracy of bodies such as the European Commission. Then there are the special payments to build up infrastructure and training in poorer parts of the EU and to fund special schemes such as the Common Agricultural Policy. Overall, the sums are not large by the standards of European government spending. That is not an excuse for them being any larger than required, of course, and there are good reasons why various governments have sought to keep the EU budget rises down in recent years — why should the EU budget be spared the austerity that applies elsewhere? But the key message is that the EU must be funded.