TIME TO END PHONEY WAR OVER FUTURE FINANCING.

It is about 60 days since EU leaders ground out a painfully difficult agreement on the EU's budget for 2007-13. But the Council and members of the European Parliament are only at the very early stages of thrashing out a deal on the fine detail of the financing package and the ground rules for spending the 862 billion euro agreed at the end of last year. While the ceilings for each budget heading were agreed in December, it was only last week that the Commission presented its detailed breakdown of the allocations for specific policy areas like research and development, trans-European networks, education and training and so on.

While the Commission has been slow to provide these essential figures which will be key to the negotiations, the Council has been dragging its feet over fixing the Austrian Presidency's margin of manoeuvre in its negotiations with the Parliament.

The result is that the three-way negotiation with the Council, Parliament and Commission taking place on February 21 will yield precious little in terms of substance but a great deal in terms of mutual accusation of inflexibility and deliberate delaying tactics.

The reality of the situation is that there is no real need for such a stand-off at this stage.

In an impact assessment of the December deal to accompany the detailed breakdown, the Commission highlighted the areas where the lower spending ceiling agreed in December could lead to funding difficulties. However, these...