EU leaders to kick off bloody budget fight next week
The EU is gunning to avoid farmers' wrath by keeping their funding mostly intact in its next budget, but first the plans must survive a bloody battle among capitals that kicks off with a leaders' summit next week.
On June 11, the rotating EU presidency held by Greek Cyprus presented a document to kickstart negotiations among the 27 member states, which most expect to be torn to pieces during talks set to run all year.
In July, the EU executive proposed a two-trillion-euro ($2.3 trillion) budget bazooka — its spending plan for the 27-country bloc for 2028-2034 — but many member states had already made clear that it was too high.
Ceding to demands for a smaller budget, the presidency suggested a modest cut of 2 percent — worth around 32.8 billion euros — but money for farmers and so-called cohesion funds for poorer European countries remained largely untouched.
