EU leaders have clashed on the bloc’s future budget as Britain leads a campaign for massive spending cuts while France and Italy argued for a budget driving jobs and growth.
Highlighting the divisions, the summit to decide the European Union’s budget for the remainder of the decade began more than six hours late on Thursday as leaders met in groups to try to reach a compromise.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel remained largely above the fray, with the dispute narrowing over many hours of talks to a handful of billions of euros -- and how to spend them.
Before Friday dawned, EU president Herman Van Rompuy said an agreement was within touching distance. “But we are not there yet,” he underlined.
Britain and France -- whose leaders failed to gather face-to-face at a planned pre-summit huddle -- were the main protagonists in a battle over spending priorities for next year-2020 that turned on whether proposals for a budget initially above one trillion euros would fall to around 900 billion (HK$9.41 billion).
That would be somewhat less than the previous seven-year budget for 2007-this year.
