EU: The EU's biggest new members condemned British plans to reduce the bloc's 2007-13 budget yesterday, amid growing fears that a December summit will not yield a long-term finance deal.
"We expect that a new budget should strengthen economic growth and employment, boost competitiveness and support structural reforms in member countries," the leaders of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic said in an open letter to British prime minister Tony Blair, who they are due to meet in Budapest on Friday.
"Without an agreement in December, the response to these challenges, together with the ambition of new EU members to catch up, would be delayed and confidence in the capability of the enlarged EU to find agreement might be seriously undermined."
Poland's president Alexander Kwasniewski called the proposals "bad for Poland and bad for Europe".
"New member states need more funds for investment to be able to catch up. I cannot imagine that the new budget will be stripped of the concept of solidarity. Britain ... risks losing its good opinion among the EU's new member states," Mr Kwasniewski said, warning of the danger of an impasse over the finance plans.
"This would be further evidence the EU is in crisis. We do not have a constitution, we lack an active foreign policy and European leaders are more preoccupied with domestic problems than with those of the EU."
Hungarian prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany also lambasted Britain's budget ideas.
"What Prime Minister Blair is now proposing is unacceptable. It is so far from Hungary's interests that, let's put it simply - no," he said.
Mr Blair is believed to back cutting the budget proposed in June by Luxembourg - Britain's predecessor as EU president - to €846 billion from €871 billion, with most of the reduction coming from proposed funding for central European states.
The EU's 10 new members - seven of which come from the old Soviet bloc - want to receive so-called cohesion funds from Brussels as soon as possible to bolster spending on reform and infrastructure.
But Mr Gyurcsany said they would not be railroaded into accepting a bad deal, and may win better terms when Austria assumes the EU presidency in January.
"I believe the majority of the 10 will not be able to accept this", and would "not pretend that they can afford to play this game", he warned. "Perhaps the Austrian presidency is more appropriate for this, considering the kind of empathy Britain is now showing in handling the problems of new members," Mr Gyurcsany added.
Mr Blair is due in Estonia tomorrow to meet the premiers of the three Baltic states which, like their ex-Soviet bloc neighbours, are expected to underline the importance of the cohesion funds and urge Britain to compromise over its €4.7 billion EU rebate.