Deal on €960m EU budget in the balance

Agreement on the EU’s seven-year €960bn budget is in the balance after an extraordinary summit in Brussels last night attended by the Taoiseach and Tánaiste.

With the timetable slipping for the Irish presidency to get agreement on the budget, the European Commission called the meeting, which, according to Eamon Gilmore, agreed to “unlock negotiations”.

Today, the European Parliament’s budget committee, which 12 days ago pulled out of talks with the Irish presidency, will discuss the outcome. Any real breakthrough is unlikely to happen until next week when Mr Gilmore, representing the member states, will sit down with the parliament’s negotiators.