EU leaders head for showdown over bloc long-term budget

For more on these budget negotiations, we can go to France 24's Dave Keating in Brussels. Good morning, Dave. What will the main battleground be for these budget negotiations today? Well, the main battleground is this argument over the main headline figure. You know, I've been through three of these long-term budget negotiations that are set for seven years, and every time it's the same. The northern European countries want a cut, a drastic cut, and the southern and eastern EU member states want to keep things the same or raise the EU budget. And it never seems to be very much about the details of what's actually in the budget. The leaders want to walk away with a victory. For the north, the victory would be cutting the budget. For the south, the victory would be raising the budget. But obviously, nobody wants to cut the parts of the EU budget that benefit them. So for instance, the northern leaders historically do not like the agriculture part of the budget, the CAP. They call for cuts in that because they don't benefit from it very much. Meanwhile, France always fiercely opposes cuts to the CAP because French farmers benefit enormously from EU subsidies. So, you know, we heard that again from the usual suspects coming in, the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who you just heard from, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, sorry, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, and the Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, all saying that there needs to be a cut to this headline figure, but not really going into details about what that means. Now, the chair of the European Council, Antonio Costa, desperately wants a deal done on this by the end of the year. He won't openly say it, but the reason is because of the possibility of Marine Le Pen being elected next spring and torpedoing the budget if it hasn't been locked in yet. His hope is to lock in the budget by the end of this year so it can't be touched were she to be elected in the spring. But for her part, Le Pen was here in Brussels last night. she gave a press conference saying it would be a democratic scandal if the EU were to lock in the budget before she has a chance to get elected and come in there and tear it up. So I think actually she doesn't really have much to worry about because based on what we heard from the leaders coming in just now for the start of the summit, they all seem to be in no hurry. They all rebuffed this idea that they need to have an agreement by the end of the year. Swedish Prime Minister Kristersson saying specifically, we are not in a hurry. So I don't think there's a will right now to compromise among the EU governments simply to get this agreed by the end of the year so that Le Pen can't mess with it next year. Now, AFP quoted a European diplomat as saying that Marine Le Pen will be in the room for those discussions today, spiritually, if not actually. Must this specter be said to apply to several European countries? Yeah, I mean, Le Pen isn't the only prospect of a new far-right leader coming in next year. Of course, we have the AfD polling in first place in Germany and having just won two state elections. And we have the Spanish election next month, where right now polls indicate that a coalition of the centre-right and the far-right Vox party are going to be elected into government. You know, right now there are three, arguably four of the 27 European Council seats occupied by the far-right, and we could have a lot more coming in next year. And so this is a very real prospect. I mean, there's the actual leaders that are there in the room, and then there are the leaders, as you say, kind of floating around in there on the outside in everybody's minds. So, you know, the center, the centrists here in Brussels really get kind of end of days feelings from them, and they're not really sure what to do to stem this tide. Now, Pedro Sanchez will be coming in here today, making the case that he, you know, he's in election mode for that Spanish election, and he wants to portray himself as the last hope of the center-left. He really is the last defender of the center-left in the council, which only has three seats in the council. It would be down to two if he's replaced out, although that could be replaced by the new incoming prime minister in Sweden. But he is going to be making the case that he's the only one fighting for the center-left in the council, and he's going to be taking the fight to Giorgia Meloni, Italy's prime minister, who has really become the face of Europe's drift toward the right. They are still at odds about the Ceuta crisis a couple months ago. Italy still has its temporary border checks with Spain as a result of that crisis. Interestingly enough, they are scheduled to go out today. Italy has continually been renewing that. We'll see if Maloney renews that while she's here at the council. But I am expecting some fireworks between Pedro Sanchez and Giorgia Meloni today because it plays well to both of their bases back home. Thank you very much for that. Dave Keating reporting for us from Brussels.