(MENAFN- Qatar News Agency) Talks to agree the EU's 2013 budget have collapsed, after negotiators from the EU and member states were unable to agree on extra funding for 2012. The EU Commission and European Parliament had asked for a budget rise of 6.8% in 2013. But most governments wanted to limit the rise to just 2.8%.
The failure of the talks will dent hopes of agreement on the 2014-2020 budget, which is up for discussion later this month, the BBC reported. Friday's dispute was over an extra 9bn euros in "emergency funding" for 2012, to cover budgets for education, infrastructure and research projects.
But Germany, France and other governments questioned the funding, and eight hours of talks produced no agreement. "Under these conditions, we felt that negotiations which hadn't really begun by six o'clock in the evening couldn't reasonably be expected to finish during the night," said the parliament's lead negotiator, Alain Lamassoure. The UK's Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Greg Clark, said the EU needed to practise "fiscal discipline".
"The UK and a number of other countries were very clear from the outset that the Commission and the European Parliament should not be asking taxpayers for billions of extra euros when the spending in member states is being reduced," he said.
The UK government, led by the Conservatives, has also objected to a proposed increase in the multi-year budget for 2014-2020, threatening a veto if necessary. An EU summit aimed at reaching a deal on that budget will be held on 22-23 November.
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