Observers this week will assess the situation and "draw the necessary consequences, " Shulz said.

CNN: EU commission investigates Paraguayan impeachment

How could Britain opine on the next seven-year budget, asked Mr Shulz, when it might not even be a member of the EU by the end of it?

BBC: Cameron touches raw nerve

Martin Shulz, president of the European parliament, allowed some of his ire about Britain's stance to burst into the open when questioned by BBC colleague Iain Watson at a press conference on Thursday night.

BBC: Cameron touches raw nerve

For good measure he attacked George Osborne, the UK chancellor, for saying (in Mr Shulz's version of what was presumably a private conversation at the Davos economic forum) that he cared less about what the EU committed itself to spend than he did about what the UK actually had to cough up.

BBC: Cameron touches raw nerve