EU reaches budget deal after marathon talks

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy (L) and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso (R) attend a European Council meeting at the European Council headquarters in Brussels: photo - EPA/THIERRY ROGE

“Deal done! #euco has agreed on #MFF for the rest of the decade. Worth waiting for,” Herman van Rompuy tweeted at around 17.00 CET.

"This is a budget oriented to the future,” he added, with 12 billion euros shaved off a proposal he made during the summit in November, which failed to reach a compromise.

Though Van Rompuy did not give details of the deal late on Friday afternoon, it is thought that it will be historic: the first ever EU budget cut, involving a 3 percent reduction in real terms on spending compared to the previous seven-year budget which ended in 2012.

The budget for 2014 – 20 will be 908.4 billion euros, according to reports, from 800 billion between 2005 – 2012.

The deal comes after 24 hours of talks, broken briefly early Friday for two-hours.

It is thought that 1.7 billion euros will be cut from administration costs, plus further savings in foreign policy and other initiatives.

Spending on so-called cohesion policy – with funding going to poorer regions of the EU including Poland - will not significantly affected by the cuts.

"We got it!” tweeted Polish government spokesman Pawel Gras following the announcement of a deal.

“I congratulate Prime Minister Donald Tusk,” writes Poland’s foreign minister Radek Sikorski, also on Twitter. “This is an historic moment,” he added, signaling the Polish government’s relief to get out of the talks with cohesion funds largely intact. (pg)