EU budget assailed
A compromise proposal on the European Union’s long-term budget, cutting more than 50 billion euros ($64.5 billion) from the original blueprint, ran into a crossfire of criticism on Tuesday from governments on both sides of the spending debate.
The plan by the EU’s Cypriot presidency recommended the deepest cuts to infrastructure spending in the poorest member states to reduce the total bill.
The document will form the basis of negotiations to seek a deal on the sevenyear budget for 2014-2020 in time for what promises to be a marathon summit of EU leaders on Nov. 22-23.
But it angered both richer Western states keen to minimize their contributions as they struggle to reduce national debt in the shadow of the eurozone crisis, and Eastern newcomers who rely heavily on EU funds for their future economic development.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said he had warned Britain, which seeks the deepest cut in spending, that if there was no deal, the current EU budget would remain in force provisionally with two per cent added each year for inflation.
“We will try to persuade the British that a compromise would be cheaper for the UK,” Tusk told reporters in Warsaw. “We will be looking for smart compromises. Here in Poland we will need to see what is beneficial for us and acceptable to others.”