BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Prospects of a deal on the European Union’s long-term budget dimmed on Friday after a fresh compromise proposal offered concessions to France and Poland but ignored British and German demands for deeper overall spending cuts.

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, chairing a summit of EU leaders to decide on a 2014-2020 budget worth about 1 trillion euros, bowed to pressure from French President Francois Hollande and his Polish counterpart to scale back proposed cuts to farm subsidies and regional development funds.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union may have won the Nobel Peace Prize this year, but to many EU leaders, officials, diplomats and even journalists, it can feel more like a torture chamber.

Increasingly, Europe is governed at night by leaders in an advanced state of exhaustion, disregarding scientific evidence that this can lead to bad decisions, or non-decisions.

BRUSSELS, Nov 20 (Reuters) – Since the start of the Greek
debt debacle, Athens and its European allies have battled to
make the numbers add up and after three years of striving and
two bailouts, it is still unclear whether they will get there.

When it comes to putting the economy back on a solid
footing, none of the calculations is simple. But one target is
straightforward: The International Monetary Fund has decreed
Greek debt must be cut to 120 percent of gross domestic product
by 2020 to be made “sustainable”.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Greece has moved a step away from bankruptcy with parliament’s approval of new reforms, but its debt pile still threatens its solvency and its international creditors have yet to agree even how big it is.

Inspectors from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund — together known as the troika — have been in Athens on and off since July trying to establish whether Greece will ever be able to pay back everything it owes.

BRUSSELS, Oct 19 (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel
raised new hurdles on Friday to using the euro zone’s rescue
fund to inject capital directly into ailing banks from next
year, dashing Spain’s hopes of soon removing the cost from its
strained national debt.

Merkel’s move limited the impact of a key decision by
European Union leaders struggling to overcome a three-year-old
debt crisis in the 17-nation currency area — an overnight
agreement to establish a single banking supervisor from next
year.

BRUSSELS, Oct 19 (Reuters) – Prime Minister David Cameron on
Friday rejected suggestions from one his EU partners that
Britain was slowly waving goodbye to Europe, but said he wanted
a “new settlement” with the European Union, including more say
in how it is run.

Speaking at the end of a two-day summit, during which
Finland’s Europe minister told Reuters he had the feeling
Britain was slowly saying “bye-bye” to the European Union,
Cameron said he just wanted a different relationship with the
continent.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union leaders agreed on Friday a single supervisor will take responsibility for overseeing euro zone banks from next year.

Details on the precise number of banks to be monitored and the powers the supervisor — the European Central Bank — will have, however, were left for later.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Britain’s policy towards Europe is becoming harder to understand and there is a sense the country is slowly waving goodbye to the European Union, Finland’s Europe minister said on Thursday.

Speaking at an EU summit, Alex Stubb said Britain appeared to be purposefully putting itself at odds with its partners. Finland allies closely with Germany on a range of EU issues and has a substantial voice in EU policymaking.

BERLIN/BRUSSELS, Oct 18 (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela
Merkel demanded stronger central powers for the European Union’s
executive to veto national budgets that breach EU rules, risking
a clash with close ally France at a summit of the bloc’s
leaders on Thursday.

Addressing parliament in Berlin hours before the 22nd summit
since the start of the euro zone’s debt crisis, Merkel also
sought to slow the race to create a single European banking
supervisor, saying quality was more important than speed.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European leaders will try to bridge deep differences over plans for a banking union at a summit on Thursday but no substantial decisions are expected, reviving concerns about complacency in tackling the three-year-old debt crisis.

It will be the fourth time EU leaders have met this year and the 22nd summit held since the crisis erupted in Greece in late 2009. Yet diplomats expect no breakthroughs at the two-day gathering, with the agenda focused instead on longer-term efforts to retool the region’s banks and economies.