Talks between EU leaders on a draft budget for 2007-2013 have ended in
failure after the United Kingdom rejected a compromise deal on its rebate.
Alongside the UK, Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands and Finland also rejected
the draft. This was despite attempts by three of the new EU members,
Poland, Hungary and Lithuania, to save the deal by giving up some of their
own budget demands. The Czech Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek backed the
attempt, saying that such sacrifices would have been worthwhile. The EU
President Jean Claude Juncker said that the EU was now in deep crisis, but
the Czech prime minister was less drastic, saying that he was convinced an
agreement would be reached sooner or later. He blamed the failure of the
talks on the inability of the union to come to terms with its own
expansion.
At the summit leaders did agree to a common stance on the ratification of
the European constitution, following its rejection by France and the
Netherlands. Delegates agreed not to stop the ratification process
altogether, but instead to postpone the deadline. The Czech prime minister
said that he would favour the end of next year as a suitable date for the
Czech Republic to attempt to ratify the treaty. On Saturday afternoon
leaders of the three parties in the Czech government met to discuss their
future stance on the ratification process.