EU finance ministers failed to get any closer to a deal on the bloc's controversial long-term budget on Saturday as Germany insisted on spending caps and Britain refused to give up its exclusive rebate, Reuters reported. The 25-nation bloc has set the goal of clinching an agreement at a mid-June summit but talks in Luxembourg ended in deadlock as the big six contributors clashed with advocates of higher spending in 2007-2013. "I'm happy to be able to announce to you an agreement, in the sense that it is clear that we don't agree," Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said after a meeting of EU finance ministers and central bankers. "And I expect this will remain the situation until the very last minute," said Juncker, who holds the EU's rotating presidency in the first half of 2005. The Luxembourg presidency is keen to broker a deal in the next five weeks on a new 7-year budget that should shift resources from "old" western Europe to the much poorer former communist countries that joined the bloc in May 2004. Juncker said he did not know whether he would be able to square the circle of conflicting demands in time, but he was certain that no agreement would be achieved in Britain's six months in the EU chair, starting in July. --more 2332 Local Time 2032 GMT
