Britain yielded no ground on its fiercely contested rebate from European Union coffers and proposed only a slight increase in overall spending in a revised proposal for the bloc's long-term budget today.
The package, in a statement by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw posted on the British EU presidency website, restored some cut aid to poor, ex-Communist new members Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia and Latvia, and offered extra money to Slovakia and Lithuania for decomissioning nuclear plants.
But crucially, Britain did not increase the €8 billion it has offered to pay towards the cost of EU enlargement and it underlined that its annual rebate would rise from €5 billion to around €7 billion.