There is a piece of gossip floating around Brussels. The gist of it is this: the British want to reduce the European Union budget to 85 percent of what it is today. That is to say, that the contributions from national governments should not exceed 0.85 percent of their national GDP, compared to the current one percent.

This would effectively mean shutting down quite a few EU projects. But instead of engaging in the traditional Brussels discussion of what such a reduction would mean and what policies would have to be forgotten, let us ponder another thought.

If the British really want to shrink the EU budget to 85 percent of what it is today, they should do it themselves and do not force others to do so.

Sure, why not. After all, the UK is already only about 85 percent part of the EU anyways. With all its opt-outs in economic, monetary, justice, migration and home policies, it is not a full member of the Union any more. Step by step over the past 20 years it has separated itself from the project more and more. Hence it's fine, the British should not pay 100 percent of what the others pay, they should pay less.

Did I forget something? Oh, yes. The British already pay less. After all there is this costly elephant, this...what is it called? The British rebate. The smaller and poorer nations of the EU are paying for the British Queen’s agricultural subsidies and are sponsoring research at Europe’s best universities, which happen to be located mostly…in the UK.

So, the deal is obvious: let the rebate go, and the UK pays 85 percent of what other states pay. It would not be a new rebate, though – the UK benefits should be also reduced to 85 percent of others’ benefits.

So, MEPs elected from the UK as well as EU officials with British passports would earn 85 percent of what their colleagues make. The farm subsidies would be reduced accordingly, and the sums allocated to the British universities and research centers would shrink by 15 percent.

After all, if Britain wants to be at a partial remove, let it be so. But there's no reason for the rest of the EU to subsidize this special treatment.

In July 2011, for the first time in history, Poland will take up the role of a rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union.

This is a gigantic administrative task, as there are about a 250 working groups, which will need to be chaired and managed. Nine out of the ten Council formations will be chaired by Polish ministers.

This raises a question: will the Polish state be able to meet the challenge? After all, the rotating presidencies of the two previous newer member states - Slovenia and the Czech Republic - were irrelevant or proved to be too great a challenge for the two countries respectively.

Well, there are a few factors, which will make the Poland's and Hungary's - in the first semester of 2011 - EU presidencies different.

Visibility is key

Budapest and Warsaw will hold EU rotating presidencies which will be politically headless.

The Lisbon Treaty - in force since December 2009 - has substantially limited the presidencies' political role. The two most visible positions of the pre-December 2009 presidencies were always the countries' PMs or presidents, who presided over the European Council, while the countries' foreign ministers chaired the General and External Affairs Council.

In today's reality those two highly important political functions are performed by permanent staff: the European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and the EU's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton.

In consequence, the 2011 Polish presidency will have almost an exclusively administrative and policy-making character and very limited political representation and visibility.

Great expectations

Timing is also important. Hungary and Poland take up their tasks seven years after enlargement. There was enough time to prepare for performing the duties effectively and efficiently. But this also means that the other member states' expectations from Budapest or Warsaw will be as high as they were from Stockholm in the second semester of 2009 or are now from Madrid.

The third factor is the size. Poland's rotating presidency is supposed to be a bigger member state presidency. Those presidencies generally have more room for taking up greater challenges - like the treaty reform during the German presidency in 2007 or the energy and climate package during the French presidency in 2008. Yet again, the greater the expectations, the larger the responsibilities.

Next July Poland may take another step in the European integration. Apart from the administrative and logistical challenges, there will be a major challenge for Polish decision-makers (including the opposition) to switch their minds from thinking about the EU as a money-giving machine to taking responsibility for the entire EU.

However, overdoing it would also be a mistake. Balancing the unknown is difficult, if not impossible.