Meanwhile there are a number of local battles with smaller parties like the Greens and the anti-EU UK Independence Party fighting hard to capitalise on disillusion with the big three parties.
Eight EU countries - including the UK, France and Germany - argue the shortfall should be made up from money in the existing budget for 2012.
At the local elections last week, UKIP - which campaigns for the UK to leave the EU - made substantial gains, while the Conservatives lost control of 10 councils.
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The 10 non-eurozone members of the 27-member EU, including the UK, are concerned they may become isolated if the eurozone nations - driven by Berlin and Paris - decide to move to a new treaty on their own.
"Bringing non-EU nationals into the UK doesn't always flow as smoothly as you'd wish, " said a Widnes spokesman.
Alcohol duty fraud in the UK often involves exporting alcohol to the EU - untaxed - and then bringing it back into the UK with false paperwork.
Critics have said the Conservative leader has not made it clear what he will do if the renegotiation he foresees in UK-EU relations is not agreed to by other EU nations or the outcome is not satisfactory while some MPs want the issue to be decided sooner.
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Amid growing calls for an "in-out" referendum about the UK's membership of the EU - and the prospect of a Commons debate on the issue later this year - Mr Cameron said he believed this was the wrong course of action.
The UK is also embroiled in a long-running legal dispute with the EU over the UK's habitual residence test, which limits benefit claims by new arrivals.
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Even before the prime minister has uttered a word of his long-awaited speech on Europe - a speech in which he is expected to call for a re-negotiation of the UK's relationship with the EU followed by a referendum - David Cameron is being warned about the consequences.
The directive was first adopted at EU-level in 1993, though the UK did not implement it until 1998.
However, many Conservatives have been pressuring the government to commit to a referendum on the question of whether the UK remains in the EU - a so-called "in-out vote".
But the Efta was less powerful and so the UK joined the EU in 1973 - followed in 1994 by other Efta members including Sweden.
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Most of the new EU jobseekers in the UK were from Poland - in numbers far greater than had been predicted by the UK government at the time.
Even though ex-UK PM Gordon Brown (Labor) first pushed for an FTT in the EU and G-20 a few years back, a new Tory-PM Cameron-led UK is dead set against FTT and bashing banks and traders.
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With potentially more lightly regulated non-EU markets like China and India crying out for American-style English-language TV, the UK's Anglo-American press barons see only problems in a more integrated Europe.
However, many Conservative MPs want him to go further and to commit to a referendum on the question of whether the UK remains in the EU or not - a so-called "in-out vote".
Over in the Lords, two Cabinet grandees, Home Secretary Theresa May, and the Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, are before the special Lords EU Committee examining the UK's possible opt-out from police and criminal justice measures, at 2pm.
Germany is now leading the search for further compromise, suggesting that spending should be capped at 1% of the EU's Gross National Income - more than the UK wants, but a lot less than Poland and others are hoping for.
Mr Clegg's absence from the Commons on Monday was one of the main talking points after the prime minister fielded questions from MPs about his reasons for using the UK's veto to block EU-wide treaty changes designed to facilitate closer union between eurozone members.
Ex-Labour cabinet minister and EU commissioner Lord Mandelson has acknowledged that voices calling for the UK to retain and extend its influence in the EU have been "relatively muted and relatively less well-organised" than their opponents.
BBC: William Hague defends Conservative EU referendum pledge
But strict rules govern which foreign criminals can be removed from the UK - those who have their family life in the UK, and in particular those from EU countries, are among the hardest to remove on human rights grounds.
But he said the UK should focus on three areas - completion of the single market, enlargement of the EU and trade deals with the US and other leading economies - where progress could not be achieved alone and which would make both the UK and the EU a "more effective global power".
Mr Vaughan - a member of the European parliament's budget committee - said that efforts to lobby the EU Commission and UK government had been "largely successful".
One such difference was over the UK government's support for the EU - as a whole entity - to sign up to the European Convention on Human Rights.
The second referendum would allow them to have a say on the UK's continued membership of the EU - Mr Bone described it as a "binding in-out referendum".
This cap on home students is set by the UK government - but students from outside the EU, who self-fund, are recruited separately and can be charged an unlimited fee.
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And the reason no one knows is because there is a major debate - and that probably means another huge bust up - between the US, the UK and the EU over precisely that.
While the commission is confident the plan is legally sound, the long arm of the levy has raised the hackles of big investment banks, as well as the UK and Luxembourg, which rejected such an EU-wide tax.
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