The bill is getting bigger
The Brexit bill might just have got even bigger. As negotiators haggle line by line over what each side thinks Britain should pay when it leaves, the latest budget data include some unwelcome numbers. The European Union’s liabilities grew almost 4 percent in 2016, with the cost of pensions for EU officials and lawmakers rising more than 5 percent, according to budget documents obtained by Bloomberg’s Ian Wishart and Marine Strauss. Pension costs are already one of the trickiest bits of the bill—Brexit Secretary David Davis called them “debatable” at the weekend—and the latest data will sharpen that debate. Swelling EU costs will also provide fodder for British euroskeptics who would rather Britain walked away without paying anything, and who object to Prime Minister Theresa May’s offer to keep paying into the EU budget for two years after Brexit. Negotiators need to take into account costs that will continue to rise until then, not just current liabilities. That’s why it