Britain's partners branded its proposals to break a deadlock over the European Union's budget self-serving yesterday but said a deal was possible next week if London dug deeper into its own pockets to sweeten the offer.
Several countries demanded that Britain accept a bigger cut in its annual rebate from EU coffers, which would continue to grow under the British plan, rather than slash aid to the new European members, as it has proposed.
French President Jacques Chirac, who clashed with British Prime Minister Tony Blair when negotiations on the long-term budget broke down last June, told Mr Blair in a telephone call that the British proposals raised problems.
European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, who initially called the British package unacceptable and unrealistic, said that with some changes it could lead to a deal on the 2007-13 budget at a December 15-16 summit.
Britain proposed a slimmed-down seven-year budget on Monday cutting €24 billion off the spending level proposed by previous EU president Luxembourg, most of it taken from regional aid to the former Communist east Europeans.
London offered to pay an extra eight billion euros over seven years towards the cost of the bloc's eastward enlargement but insisted that any bigger cut in its refund from Brussels was conditional on cutting farm subsidies that benefit France most.
Under the proposal, the rebate would rise from €5.6 billion this year to an average €7.0 billion a year in 2007-13, according to British calculations. The extra payment was couched as a temporary measure until 2013.
The newcomers called the plan unacceptable, but several indicated they could settle for a lesser cut in aid provided they secured measures to speed up the disbursement of EU funds.
"I still see Monday's proposal as Britain's bargaining tactics," Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz of Poland, the largest new member, told public radio.
The president of the European Parliament, Josep Borrell, recalled that the long-term budget required the EU legislature's agreement and said: "What is unacceptable must not be accepted."
Spanish Economy Minister Pedro Solbes was among many who suggested London had chiefly looked after its own interests.
Asked if Spain, which voted against the Luxembourg package to demand more regional aid, might veto a deal, he said: "If there are not any changes, I think it's going to be difficult."
Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson, an ally of Britain in fighting for EU budget discipline, said he was surprised how brazenly "pro-British" London's proposal was. Sweden and the Netherlands want to reduce their big net payments to the EU.
Denmark and Belgium said the British plan showed a lack of solidarity with the poor newcomers and Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini called it "comprehensively negative".