EU Budget Talks Suspended over Previous Budget Gap

Nobody wants to pay 9 billion euros owed for 2012

Talks on the European Union's (EU) 2013 budget collapsed on Friday as its austerity-minded member states refused to plug a funding gap of about 9 billion euros (11.4 billion U.S. dollars) in the EU's 2012 budget, EU's lawmakers said.

"The differences between the positions of (the European) Council and (the European) Parliament were too far apart to continue talks overnight," Alain Lamassoure, the European Parliament's (EP) lead negotiator, said in a statement released by the EP.