EU: European foreign ministers re-opened discussion on the EU budget yesterday but failed to make substantial progress towards a deal.
The talks were the first held at ministerial level for four months, following the failure of member states to agree a budget for the period 2007 to 2013 at an acrimonious summit in June.
At that meeting, Britain and France disputed how to spend EU cash and the future of the British budget rebate, a mechanism agreed in 1984 that diverts money back to London from Brussels.
Britain, which chaired yesterday's discussion, reiterated its opposition to a budget proposal made under the Luxembourg presidency. This would have set the EU's seven-year spending at 1.06 per cent of gross national income and left the Common Agriculture Policy unreformed.
"Significant changes in both the level of the overall spending and in the structure of its financing will be necessary, compared with what was on the table in June, if there is to be a deal in December," said British foreign secretary Jack Straw. Most member states are understood to favour the Luxembourg proposal as the basis for negotiations.