European leaders gathered in Brussels on Thursday evening to join battle over almost one trillion euros in EU spending for the seven years up to 2020.
All the signs suggested that a summit failure to agree the EU budget, and David Cameron 's resistance to a deal in November, would end in securing a smaller spending blueprint than before, bringing about for the first time in the EU's history a reduction in the seven-year budget.
But France served warning on the prime minister announcing that there would be a tough fight, and Germany was pessimistic about striking a deal.
Cameron went into the summit insisting that the outcome had to be lower than the figures presented in November by Herman Van Rompuy , the summit chair. There was already consensus on that.
"There is going to be cuts. The question is how much," said the Latvian prime minister , Valdis Dombrovskis.
Sources said Van Rompuy would open the bidding with a figure about 15bn less than that proffered in November.
The French president, Cameron declared that the spending cuts taking place across the different countries had to be replicated in the EU budget.
"The numbers are much too high," he said. "They need to come down and if they don't come down, there won't be a deal."
The chances were high that the summit could degenerate into a ritualistic exercise in horsetrading, with the various parties fiercely seeking to defend vested and national interests.
Germany has conceded that its net contribution to the budget will increase. The German chancellor, .
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