Britain will consider any proposal on its European Union budget rebate but will veto anything that does not redress imbalances in the bloc's spending, finance minister Gordon Brown said today.
In an interview on ITV1's Jonathan Dimbleby programme Mr Brown said any proposal must overhaul the EU's system of agricultural subsidies and spending on poor regions that made the bloc's budget "fundamentally unfair".
"That's why it is in principle right to have the rebate as long as you failed to deal with the problems of agriculture and as long you've also failed to deal with problems that arise from the way the budget is constructed," he said.
On whether Britain would agree to a cap on the payback or a change to the mechanism by which it is calculated, Brown said London would defend the rebate as "totally justified" unless there were wider budgetary changes.
"You cannot remove a rebate or talk about how the rebate is delivered until you're prepared to talk about the fundamental reform of the agricultural policy and of the way the budget is constructed," he added.
Brown was speaking as EU foreign ministers gathered in Luxembourg to try to hammer out a deal on the bloc's budget for 2007-2013 ahead of a summit of EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.
The round of meetings begin in closed session later today kicking off a week of tough negotiating intended to shape the European Union's direction for years to come.
"We're all obliged to help rescue Europe," Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski told Germany's Tagesspiegelnewspaper in an interview published today.
He added that he wanted a clear message from France and the Netherlands, whose voters recently rejected the proposed EU constitution, on its plans for making progress in light of their referendums.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told Madrid newspaper ABCthat the EU could show it can still move forward by approving the long-term budget this week.
The forthcoming summit in Brussels will address two hotly contested issues central to the EU's future - the budget for 2007-2013, worth €105 billion this year; and how to avoid a crisis after the rejection of the constitution.
Agencies