British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned new EU member states today not to miss the boat on a budget deal.
Seeking a deal on the 2007-2013 budget, Mr Blair put his case bluntly to the leaders of the four biggest new members - Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia - at a tough meeting in Budapest today.
"If we fail to get the budget deal in December, it is not more likely we will get a budget deal in six months or a year," he told a news conference after the talks.
If there was no deal on future financing under the British EU presidency, which expires on December 31st, he told the newcomers: "The consequences of that is that you can end up in two years' time with only a third of the money you need."
He also made clear that Britain was prepared to pay a fair share of the costs of the bloc's historic eastward enlargement, even though he said London's annual rebate would go up, not down, under any deal that left EU farm subsidies unchanged.
Mr Blair's official spokesman said the east Europeans needed to be hard-headed and recognise they faced difficult choices. "Is it in their interests ... to postpone the possibility of a deal?" he asked.
The talks, which followed a meeting between Mr Blair and prime ministers of the three Baltic states yesterday, failed to produce a breakthrough, but both sides described them as useful. "We are still far from agreement today," Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany told a news conference. "We want to come to an agreement but not at any price."
Diplomats say the new members reiterated their resistance to a British plan to slash proposed EU aid to the 10 mostly ex-communist newcomers by 10 per cent, or about €16 billion.
But they could agree to a smaller cut, if it was offset by easier access to funding which the mostly former communist nations need to modernise their economies and infrastructure.