EU leaders fail to reach budget agreement, but Romania gets some good news

The EU leaders who met in Brussels last week to discuss the Union's budget between 2014-2020 ended up with a lack of agreement, and a new meeting has been set for the beginning of next year. Romania will loose some money compared to what it expected to get, but it will most likely still receive more than between 2007 and 2013. Romanian president Traian Basescu (in picture, right, near Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council) who represented the country at the summit last week, refrained from calling the meeting a success or a failure. At the end of the meeting, he said he was even more optimistic than when he had left Romania By January, the negotiation will continue and Romania hopes to be able to negotiate lower budget cuts. For the time being, the few statements he made shine a bright light over some sectors: Romanian farmers will get at least EUR 11.5 billion between 2014 and 2020, which is EUR 5 billion more than what the country got between 2007 and 2013. Some more good news crept in: a previous requirement which stated that countries with an EU fund absorption rate below 60 percent could not get an increase in funding over 15 percent was canceled. This was one of the sore areas for Romania – it could have received more funds, but up to a 15 percent increase compared to the 2007-2013 budget. Romania has an absorption rate of only 10 percent. "We will need some more time to finalise this solution," said President Van Rompuy at the end of last week's negotiations "This is the budget for the rest of the decade. And the next 7 years will be crucial, to put Europe back on the path of recovery and growth. So we must get it right." editor@romania-insider.com