EU farm policy has started to be reformed, and its share of the EU budget has fallen from over 60% to 40%; Britain has for several years enjoyed significantly faster economic growth than most other member states, so that it is now one of the richer EU countries, even compared with France and Germany; and the new member states are so much poorer than even the poorest of the old members, that they have an unanswerable moral case for a generous share of whatever budget could be negotiated.