Never, perhaps, has a European Council opened with such total uncertainty of a result. Three possibilities loom that are not only different but real alternatives - with each mutually exclusive of the others:
(1) Overall compromise on the financial perspectives of EU for the seven year 2014-2020 period - in other words, the definition of the total volume of financing that the EU will have available for this period. This will be thanks to reciprocal concessions between the starting positions...