A draft budget for 2010 is set to see the European Parliament's budget increase by 6.5% to £2.6 billion.

Administrative costs are to also increase by a massive 20% while the EU is also planning to splash out £8 million on an internet-based TV channel. The cost of MEPs' pensions, salaries and expenses are set to increase by 4.5%..

"This is a truly sickening, yet utterly predictable trend", said YI Chairman Michael Heaver.

"The European Union is becoming more and more expensive year on year. Those supportive of the EU have totally lost the plot and fail to understand that in a time of economic hardship for normal people, our political elite should be leading by example.

"Instead they are showing how out-of-touch they are by grabbing even more cash and making the out of control, anti-democratic freight train that is the EU even more destructive to our nation's finances.

"The fact that MEPs are justifying the extra costs by complaining about the extra work load the Lisbon Treaty has brought on is adding insult to injury. If the politicians hadn't been gutless and given the citizens of Europe the referendums on Lisbon they wanted, Lisbon would never have come into effect."