LONDON, Dec. 5 (UPI) -- Britain is offering to pay an extra $1.17 billion into the European Union budget in an effort to end a deadlock over the 2007-2013 EU budget.
The proposed deal cuts development aid to the 10 new member states but makes it easier for them to get the money, the BBC reported Monday.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says Britain wants to pay its fair share of the costs of enlargement, but European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso says the British proposal is "unacceptable" because it leaves the EU with insufficient funds.
Barroso said the British proposal was more suited to a "mini-Europe, not the strong Europe that we need."
Germans and Dutch would be better off under the deal; Swedes, French, Spanish and Italians would stay much the same, the BBC said.
The proposed cut in funds for the EU bureaucracy would hurt Luxembourg and Belgium.
Britain is anxious to reach a deal on the budget at an EU summit on Dec. 15 and 16, two weeks before the end of its EU presidency, the BBC said.
