Blair and V4 sought for compromise

The Friday meeting of Hungarian, Czech, Polish and Slovak Prime Ministers with their British counterpart Tony Blair in Budapest finished with no compromise achieved. The V4 representatives held talks with the Prime Minister of the currently EU presiding country over the next EU budget. UK has plans to cut 10% from development aid to new member countries which they were due to receive in the 2007-13 EU budget. In Budapest, Tony Blair offered to donate some of Britain’s rebate to the Eastern European countries. However, Britain has refused to negotiate its rebate separately from the agriculture policy review as demanded from the side of the new member states. The Czech, Polish and Hungarian Prime Ministers expressed their disagreement with British budget policy.