The U.S. may plunge over a fiscal cliff if a budget deal can’t be concluded first, but the European Union is hurtling toward a budgetary precipice of its own amid clashing views over the bloc’s future financing. To avert that collision, E.U. officials and leaders of the 27 member states will huddle in Brussels starting Nov. 22 in search of that elusive fiscal compromise they can all live with. Don’t bank on any of them returning home with an agreement very soon.
Not only are France, Germany and the U.K. each dug into conflicting positions on a number of budgetary items. Those disagreements also center on issues central to the E.U.’s functioning, financing and even conception. In many ways the fractures over the next European budget reflect the differences on policy, reform and austerity separating Germany and France in managing the euro crisis. Wrangling elsewhere also directly echoes debate in the U.K. over Britain’s continued membership in the E.U. All else failing, summiteers might agree on a name change to the European Disunion.
Read more: http://world.time.com/2012/11/21/a-deeply-divided-european-union-faces-its-own-budgetary-cliff/#ixzz2D0uklI33
http://world.time.com/2012/11/21/a-deeply-divided-european-union-faces-its-own-budgetary-cliff/print/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20435667
