EU budget summit breaks up without agreement

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Brussels summit on the EU budget has ended without agreement, BBC News reported.

EU leaders are taking a short break before returning to draft a statement on when to meet and what to do next. News conferences are expected later on Friday, November 23 sources at the summit say.

Hours of talks on the 2014-2020 budget failed to bridge big gaps between the richer countries and those whose economies rely most on EU funding.

The UK said current EU spending levels must be frozen.

The EU's government grouping, the European Council, believes it may still reach a deal early in the new year, the BBC's Chris Morris reports from Brussels.

But it is hard to see how that may happen because the divisions are very clear and have become even more stark at a time of economic crisis, our Europe correspondent says.

Summit chairman Herman Van Rompuy had reshuffled the allocations in his original proposed budget during the summit, but he kept in place a spending ceiling of 973bn euros (£783bn; $1.2tn).

With the eurozone's dominant states, Germany and France, unable to agree on the budget, UK Prime Minister David Cameron warned against "unaffordable spending".