THE WEEK THAT WAS… (Nov. 26, 2012)

Friday at end of the afternoon, limousines left in scores the Justus Lipsius building. Twenty seven government leaders and heads of state accompanied by their sherpa’s haste to home. The special Brussels Summit about the EU budget 2014-2020 was over. Result? No result! Surprise? No surprise! Although some media were talking about a ‘collapse’ and a ‘bitter discord over the new EU budget’, more experienced EU watchers shrugged their shoulders. L’histoire se répète.

In spite of EU Council President Herman van Rompuy’s attempts, the tough language in de first round guaranteed a failure. Before the negotiations started officially on Thursday night, it was clear that an agreement wasn’t within reach. The EU budget 2014-2015 is the fifth Multiannual Financial Framework. Who looks at the young history of the EU will find out that the four MFF’s in the past were never agreed in one round. The scenario is always the same. In the first round the EU leaders show their toughest side, refusing compromises and are asking more money (the ‘net receivers’) or are refusing to pay more money (the ‘net payers’). In the second round (somewhere in the beginning of 2013) the summit will take much longer: billions of Euro’s are going from one side of the table to the other, left and right a lot of symbolic gestures are done and, yes!, early in the morning finally all EU leaders agree with the compromise at the table; a sigh of relief will percolate through the room…

So, no worries!