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 of the member states - despite the radical differences that separate them and the right of veto that each possesses. This possibility presupposes large scale concessions from each member state - both for the total envelope and for how it is allocated.
(2) Continued negotiations at the end of the year or the beginning of next year - with a deepening of positions and the search for compromise or new ideas in the meantime. It is hard to see how conciliation between such radically opposed positions could come about - but anything is possible.
(3) Relinquishing the principle of long term financial perspectives. The EU could decide to define annual budgets - for which there is no right of veto as they are approved by majority with the participation of the European Parliament (which of course also decides by majority). This would be the failure of the effort to determine the evolution of Europe over the long term, but at the same time it would be the end of the blackmail from those who reject compromises by using their veto.
Evolution in case of failure. Point (3) would open the way to evolutions which have already been taken into consideration and are sometimes very much desired - or even considered indispensable: revision of the treaties or the birth of a new treaty; clarification and confirmation of two-speed Europe, which to my mind already exists in the legal texts (thanks to enhanced cooperation) and in reality; clarity of the position of the United Kingdom and on its future in the Community (or not).
Let's face it - the summit which has just started will radically influence the functioning and future evolution of the construction of Europe.
(FR/transl.fl)