Monday, 21 November 2005EU foreign ministers have criticised the UK for failing to put forward firm proposals to resolve disagreements over the 2007-13 budget.
A number of ministers at a meeting in Brussels said there was no point discussing the issue until the UK came up with a blueprint with hard figures.
The UK, the current EU president, says it is doing all it can to get the row resolvede at a summit in mid-December.
It is so far resisting calls for it to give up its 5.7bn euro (Tú3.9bn) rebate.
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said the foreign ministers had voiced "a general feeling of concern," pleading with the British presidency to compromise in order to prevent a crisis.
"Either [the UK] proposes a package over the next few days, to include a fair distribution of the costs of enlargement, as we proposed in June, or it condemns us all to failure, which would be a heavy responsibility," he said.
Correspondents say the UK will present a "take-it-or-leave-it" budget proposal to a special meeting of foreign ministers at the start of next month.
Protests
Reports from Brussels say the Finnish Foreign Minister, Erkki Tuomioja, refused to contribute to the meeting, saying: "As there is nothing new to discuss, I have got nothing new to say."
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who was chairing the meeting, said his Finnish colleague deserved an award for making the shortest speech at an EU meeting.
The Reuters news agency quoted diplomats, who reported the Belgian Foreign Minister Karel de Gucht as having said: "We are sitting here wasting our time".
Reuters said most ministers insisted that a compromise proposed by the Luxembourg presidency of the EU in June should form the basis for a deal at the Brussels summit on 15 and 16 December.
Correspondents say UK Prime Minister Tony Blair will discuss the European Union with the new German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, who will visit to London on Thursday, two days after her inauguration.
'Urgency'
Germany agrees with the UK that the EU budget should be capped at 1% of EU gross national income, and Ms Merkel once sympathised with the British desire for cuts in EU farm subsidies.
The President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, attended the foreign ministers' meeting to urge the member states to work hard to resolve the budget row.
"I have come here to tell the presidency and other member states that a deal is really urgent, and very frankly it's not credible to speak about new enlargements if you are not able to finance the European Union as it is now," he told reporters.
"This is a very serious matter, we are running out of time."
The UK rejected the Luxembourg compromise in June because it said it could not agree to a reduction in its rebate without guarantees of structural reform of the entire budget - principally, a reduction in farm subsidies.
The Luxembourg deal would have frozen the rebate at its current level, causing an increase over time in the UK's net contribution to the EU.
UK assurances
The rebate dates from 1984, when the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher insisted it was not fair how little the UK received in European farm subsidies.
Countries with powerful farming constituencies, such as France and Ireland, oppose further changes to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), while other net contributors also want a mechanism to reduce their contribution.
Going into the meeting, Mr Straw said the UK was committed to doing everything it could to get a deal.
"But a negotiation is a negotiation which requires movement by all sides," he said, "not just by one party, which in this case happens to be the UK presidency".
BBC News
November 21, 2005 |
Monday, 21 November 2005
BBC News
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