Brussels fudge

摘要

Last weekend's summit agreement on the European Union budget was in line with the best Brussels traditions. It was done long after midnight, at the end of a bruising day of negotiations. Almost nobody was satisfied. The British press said that Tony Blair had given away Margaret Thatcher's sacred budget rebate and got nothing in return. The share of eu spending that goes on its ludicrous common agricultural policy (cap) stayed at a whopping 40%. And, rather than holding a proper debate now over what the eu should be doing and how it ought to spend its money, the exhausted leaders promised a feeble-sounding review in three years' time-when most of them will, with luck, no longer be in office.