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EUROPEAN UNION LEADERS are meeting for a second day of talks on the bloc’s budget for the next seven years having failed to reach any accord last night.
Amid disagreements over the level of spending that should be committed to until 2020 there are now fears that no deal will be reached when talks resume at 11am this morning in Brussels.
German chancellor Angela Merkel said last night that she had doubts as to whether a deal could be reached at all following talks.
“I think we’re advancing a bit, but I doubt that we will reach a deal,” Mrs Merkel said according to BBC News.
The president of European Council Herman van Rompuy distributed his proposal for a budget, officially known as the 2014-2020 Multi-Annual Financial Framework (MFF), yesterday.
He then spent much of the day locked in talks with individual leaders in a bid to get them all on the same side.
At issue is the amount that the EU will spend over the next seven years, somewhere in the region of over €900 billion with countries like Britain looking for a cut or at the very least freeze in the budget.
Meanwhile there are other countries such as those in Eastern Europe which advocate a budget increase to ensure infrastructure and long-term spending projects are not at risk.
For France and Ireland a key issue is spending on agriculture – which accounts for 37.5 per cent of the total budget – and maintaining that.
A failure to agree a budget would mean rolling over next year’s budget into 2014 on a month-by-month basis with an adjustment of 2 per cent for inflation but EU infrastructure projects would be at risk.
Ironically this could also mean that the budget would actually be higher than what countries like Britain say they will accept now.
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so many ‘talks’, nothing changes
Apparently his nickname out there is beep beep because he makes the sound of a truck reversing as he backs up while Merkel (attached with strap on) directs him
Caption: the most spineless man in europe enters talks
That’s not fair, he does have a spine, it just allows him to bend over very deeply!
He does have a spine. It’s safely kept in Angela Merkel’s handbag.. along with his balls!
Surprise surprise it’s a bloody joke .
It’s brilliant having a great leader like Enda there working his little mayo ass off himself for us. I know we are safe in his hands & to show the confidence I have in him I am going to order a Chinese tonight for the first time in years & balls to the begrudgers….
Chicken balls I presume?
Somebody call the Nurse for peter – he’s overdue his injection. :)
God but the EU is a bad joke, if they had stayed as a European community, countries working together, rather than trying to turn it in to a unitary state under Berlin and Brussels. It will end in great disaster for the economies and peoples of Europe.
Smokescreen for what is actually going to happen. First inflation, elite bankers will pump Europe with euros causing your paper money worthless, Then the euro will be collapsed by design, the NWO posing as a knight in shining armour will come to our aid, all the while imposing more austerity and raping Europe of her natural resources. We will all be working for the corporation by 2020. As history depicts human labour is cheap, human life cheaper, they don’t need as many of us anymore because robots are taking our place.
I’m certain that if his bond holder buddies needed the bank deal we would be seeing it on “Reeling In the Years” by now.
The EU’s budget has not been signed off for 18 years, as on average 5% of the money in it gets “lost” each year. No wonder the EU officials are so vociferous in their support for it. It is the greatest gravy train on earth. The ultimate political kleptocracy.
That’s him, that’s the boss. The power and authority this man would command at these negotiations amazes me, I’d say he is exhilarating to watch in action.
No ice, no lemon, no messin.
There is no power or authority in this weak fellow, sure GE only goes along for the sung song on the bus and the pink wafer biscuits handed out at the kiddies table.
Sorry ABU you meant Cameron has the power and authority to seek what is right for his country’s citizens…. Got ya
‘Irleand’ in one of the paragraphs. The Euro Lords from Rumpy downwards seem to believe austerity does not apply to them, which is funny as they promote it so assiduously. David Cameron is doing something right.
There will be intensive talks about, terms reference for the lunch menu!! then after lunch intensive talks will take place to arrange the another get together to discuss a pay raise for the Eurocrates, at the tax payer expense of course, no free money here. There will be TV debate, press releases and media editorials. Thousands of words of speculation will be written about the fact that nothing has happened. Then the whole circus will start again in a few months
I bet the British will make the big stoy with their bully boy tactics,why don’t they pull out instead of complaing all the time.
I never agree with Cameron, but at times where austerity rules, also the EU will have to do with less. Key is how to spend that money.
The only people looking forward to seeing a politician at their door are the undertakers. Spineless Kenny
Speak to the hand as the rest of me’s not listening!
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