Finland and the Netherlands have added their backing to a plea by the British government to freeze the next European Union budget, in an open letter published on Saturday. David Cameron, the British prime minister, spearheaded the idea for restraint in the next Brussels budget at this week's summit, with the backing of France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany's Angela Merkel, as dpa reported. Next year will see EU member states negotiate the new seven-year budget, which will run from 2014 to 2020. The letter states that "as member states make extraordinary efforts to clean up public finances ... the challenge for the EU in the coming years will not be to spend more, but to spend better." EU spending until the current budget ends in 2013 "should increase, at most, by no more than inflation," while annual payments in the next budget "should not exceed the 2013 level with a growth rate below the rate of inflation," it reads. However, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso dismissed the ploy. "We're now seeing what I call the ritual dances of the different tribes before the real party begins," he said of calls to stick to inflation-only spending rises.
