EP negotiators not to attend budget talks

Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk, European Parliament President Martin Schulz and Portugal's Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho (L-R) address a joint news conference after a Friends of Cohesion meeting at the European Parliament in Brussels, Nov 13, 2012. [Photo/Agencies]

BRUSSELS - Head of the European Parliament (EP) said Tuesday that EP negotiators would not attend the 2013 budget talks scheduled later this night due to "no agreement" among member states about the budget for this year.

EP President Martin Schulz made the remarks in a written statement just as finance ministers of the European Union (EU) were scheduled to kick off the meeting.

Talks on the EU's 2013 budget collapsed Friday as its austerity-minded member states refused to plug a funding gap of about 9 billion euros ($11.4 billion) in the EU's 2012 budget.

The EP and the European Council which represents member states were supposed to have agreed on the budget by midnight on Tuesday.

The collapse of Friday's negotiations, which were meant to agree on a 2013 EU budget but hit impasse over the funding gap in the budget of 2012, has dealt a blow to a plan to come out with the EU's 2014-2020 long-term budget later this month.

The shortfall includes about 1.5 billion euros which should have been paid to Italy, Poland and Spain to compensate victims of flooding or job cuts, as well as funding for the Erasmus student exchange program.

While EU member states argued that EU institutions can still manage without the nine billion euros, Schulz said that "these funds are needed for the EU to respect its legal obligations, i.e. to pay for bills incurred for goods, works and services delivered."

Under the EU law, the commission now will have to draft a new budget, a process that could take weeks.