BRUSSELS — Everyone is drawing lines in the sand, but the leaders are so far apart they might as well be on different beaches.
The European Union heads into a critical summit Thursday to hammer out a $1.28 trillion budget through 2020 — and it promises to be one of its most bitter fights in years.
Finding hard cash to prop up European unity has become a political quagmire for leaders facing angry, crisis-weary citizens at home.
Complicating the task is that any one of the EU’s 27 member states can veto a deal, giving each tremendous negotiating clout, with even small Denmark able to thwart heavy-hitters Germany or France.
“There is a whole bunch of Tarzan-like chest beating,” said Finland’s European affairs minister, Alexander Stubb.
It all leaves little hope for a quick solution.
“Now, it looks very unlikely that an agreement will be reached,” said Claire Dheret, a policy analyst at the European Policy Center.
At stake is a plan to divvy up the EU spending budget from 2014 to 2020. So far the EU’s executive commission has proposed a ceiling of just over $1.3 trillion, which would amount to a small increase.
Meanwhile, EU President Herman Van Rompuy is already seeking the cooperation of spending-shy countries like Britain by offering more than $100 billion short of that mark.
“With less money, we cannot do the same as before,” Mr. Van Rompuy wrote in the invitation letter he sent to the 27 EU leaders on Tuesday.
His proposals would effectively cut the budget by up to $30 billion, compared with the 2007-13 period.
Britain, ever the halfhearted EU member, wants to cut even deeper if possible, arguing that its beleaguered taxpayers should not have to shoulder the rest of Europe’s woes.
“If there isn’t a deal that is good for Britain, if there isn’t a deal that is available, then there won’t be a deal,” said British Prime Minister David Cameron.
Leaders from Copenhagen up north to Madrid and Rome down south are already threatening vetoes for often opposing reasons, and the EU has said the summit might go three days and three nights.
“Budget negotiations have always been very intense,” Ms. Dheret said in an interview. “The problem is that the climate of the negotiations has changed because of austerity.”
Officials are warning of the consequences of failing to approve a budget.
“Let there be no mistake: the absence of an agreement would be harmful for all of us,” Mr. Van Rompuy wrote Tuesday.
Already the Germans are hinting that foot-dragging may be the least harmful solution.
“If necessary, we will have to meet again at the beginning of next year,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told her parliament on Wednesday.
If there is no deal up to 2014, there would be a rollover of the 2013 budget plus a 2 percent increase accounting for inflation.
At the heart of the budget fight are the conflicting vantage points of rich EU countries and poor.
Wealthy nations such as Germany, Britain, Sweden and the Netherlands are becoming increasingly tired of bailing out countries such as Greece and Spain, which feasted on EU development funds before collapsing under piles of debt.
At the same time, up to 15 poorer nations are exhorting them to continue funding projects to close the wealth gap between the mostly northern and western nations and the southern and eastern members.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive, backs more spending, arguing that cross-border initiatives on everything from science to pipelines will help to create the economic growth and jobs that the bloc of a half-billion people needs.
Hundreds of EU Commission staff gathered outside EU headquarters on Wednesday to protest possible cuts, and trade unions called for a half-day strike to boost their demands.
Mr. Cameron has made cuts among EU staff, which are derisively called Eurocrats in Britain, a key part of his demands.
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