The European Council met on 22 and 23 November to discuss a new multinational financial framework (MFF) for the forthcoming 7 years from 2014 until 2020. The heads of EU states were about to discuss the most controversial topics as funding of cohesion funds, common agricultural policy or the size of the European bureaucratic apparatus.

The European Commission proposed a budget of €1.09 trillion for 2014-2020, that is about 5.5% bigger than the one for the previous seven-year period. This proposal, however, has not met expectations of many countries as Sweden or Britain, who declared their support only if the budget was about to be cut significantly. As usual, France and Poland were on the other side of the fence, demanding even more funding for their farmers. With her pragmatic view of the situation, Germany´s chancellor Angela Merkel was standing somewhere in the middle, trying to strike a deal that would not upset her voters before next year´s general election.

In this environment of discontent and strict stances of Member states, it was almost impossible to strike a deal. Finally, the European leaders decided to come back together at the beginning of next year and leave space for an upcoming all-important meeting dealing with the banking union on 13 and 14 December.

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