EU confirms Nov. 22-23 summit on trillion-euro bloc budget
Photo © Boguslaw Mazur - Fotolia
(BRUSSELS) - An extraordinary summit of EU leaders will be held on November 22-23 to try and settle a battle over an estimated trillion euros of the bloc's spending, EU President Herman Van Rompuy's spokesman said.
"President Van Rompuy has convened a summit on November 22-23 on the Mulit-annual Financial Framework," Dirk De Backer told AFP.
The European Union expects to have an estimated 1.0 trillion euros ($1.25 trillion) to spend in a seven-year budgetary cycle from 2014 to 2020, but is locked in drawn-out negotiations over its spending plans and its funding mechanisms.
Leaders are already scheduled to gather at EU headquarters in Brussels on October 18-19, when bailouts for Greece and Spain are expected to dominate the discussion, and again on December 13-14, also on efforts to resolve the debt crisis for the long term.
On the budget, negotiators face fights over farm subsidies and aid for poorer regions (with each counting for 40 percent of its budget), and whether and to what extent the EU should be free to raise more of its own money via taxes, notably on financial transactions.
Arguments against ever-rising spending -- the annual budget is currently headed towards 140 billion euros -- have sharpened since the financial and debt crises first bit in 2008.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has led successive calls first for cuts and then a freeze on EU spending in real terms, and can be expected to be a vocal figure come the talks.
Farming support is sacrosanct for the French, while cohesion spending to improve infrastructure in poorer areas is considered untouchable by newer EU members such as Poland.