Cyprus Mail www.cyprus-mail.com
Friday, February 8, 2013
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Deep rifts mark EU budget talks Discussions begin five hours late as differences emerge between Britain and France over figures By Emmanuel Jarry and Jan Strupczewski
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HIGH-PROFILE summit to negotiate the EU’s next longterm budget was delayed by more than five hours and then got off to a shaky start last night after stark differences emerged between Britain, France and other countries over the headline figures. European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, the chair and chief negotiator of the talks, had intended to put a budget plan to EU leaders yesterday evening, but postponed the move after it became clear there was insufficient grounds to strike a deal. It was not clear whether he would delay it until today, as one diplomat indicated was possible. When the summit began at around 9pm, the leaders had no proposal in front of them. The budget, which covers the years 2014-2020, deals with nearly €1 trillion of spending on everything from agricultural subsidies to scientific research, roads and infrastructure, foreign aid and development assistance. While vast as a headline figure, it is relatively small in terms of annual GDP, amounting to around 1.0 per cent of the EU’s total output, or around €150 billion a year. However, that does not prevent negotiations over the package becoming deeply
divided along national and regional lines, particularly between northern European countries that want to keep spending tight, and southern and eastern European states that want to maintain funding for infrastructure and farming. Those differences came to the fore yesterday, with EU officials saying France and Britain were at sharp odds, not just over the numbers but about whether their leaders should meet. British officials said French President Francois Hollande was invited to attend a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Prime Minister David Cameron and Van Rompuy ahead of the talks, but French officials said that wasn’t the case. But the bigger disagreement is over the numbers. Cameron has said he wants to see “tens of billions” of euros cut from the €972 billion plan Van Rompuy put before the leaders at a summit in November, when it was not possible to reach a deal. But in order to get the figures down to where Cameron would like to see them, it would more than likely mean cutting into programmes such as farming subsidies that France, Italy, Spain, Poland and other countries staunchly defend. The budget must be agreed unanimously, which means every country, from tiny Malta to Germany, carries a veto.
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Whitney Houston voted top of love song poll
A group of passersby yesterday stop to chat over an election billboard in Nicosia featuring candidate Praxoulla Antoniadou, leader of the United Democrats and a former commerce minister in the current government (CNA)
WITH Valentine’s Day just a week away, singer Whitney Houston’s classic ballad ‘I Will Always Love You’ has been voted the most popular love song in a US poll. The signature song of the Grammy-award winning singer, who died suddenly a year ago, scored 38 per cent of the vote among all adults in the Harris Interactive survey, and was the top pick among all divorced, separated or widowed Americans. Houston’s hit from her 1992 movie, The Bodyguard was a cover of a 1974 song written and recorded by country singer Dolly Parton. The Righteous Brothers’ ‘Unchained Melody’, Percy Sledge’s ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’, Joe Cocker’s ‘You Are So Beautiful’, and the Bees Gees’ ‘How Deep is Your Love’ rounded out the top five songs. “Romance is about making an emotional appeal to the senses, and to the heart,” Aaron Levine, of Sony Electronics Home Audio, which commissioned the poll, said. “So, turn down the lights and turn up the sound.” More than 2,000 adults who voted in the online poll were asked to pick their favourite love songs from a list of more than 40 tunes spanning several decades. Aerosmith’s ‘I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing’ came in sixth, followed by Patsy Cline’s ‘Crazy’, Foreigner’s ‘I Want to Know What Love Is’, Bryan Adams’ ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It for You’ and ‘Let’s Get It On’ by Marvin Gaye.