Brussels (Belgium) (AFP) – Ireland, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, suggested Saturday slashing the bloc’s next proposed budget by 140 billion euros ($155 billion), in a quest to bridge deep division and reach a deal by the end of the year.

European Union countries have been wrangling over the size of the next budget, with Germany spearheading calls for deep cuts to an earlier proposal of nearly two trillion euros by Brussels.

Leaders from the 27-nation bloc will meet in Brussels next week to discuss the plan as they seek to reach an agreement on the 2028-2034 budget by Christmas.

The EU fears that any delay would push talks into a fraught election year in 2027 with worries about what eurosceptic victories in France and elsewhere would mean for future dealmaking.

But the bloc is deeply divided. Germany leads a pack with Austria, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden, which want cuts of several hundred billion euros.

Meanwhile France, the second-biggest European economy and a net contributor to the budget, argues the continent needs sufficient means to match the rising challenges the 27-country bloc faces.

Ireland said its new draft – which used 2025 prices – foresaw an overall cut on the earlier proposal of 141 billion euros, or 8 percent overall.

The new budget would still far outstrip the EU’s last one, which was worth around 1.2 trillion euros.

“I certainly hope that there will be a deal by Christmas,” Ireland’s Europe minister Thomas Byrne said.

“Nobody’s going to get everything that they wanted in any proposal, but we think that there is something there for all of the member states.”

But immediate reactions weren’t promising.

“The overall volume must come down significantly,” said Sweden’s Europe minister Jessica Rosencrantz.

“The numbers that have been put on the table still present a wildly unaffordable increase and we are therefore nowhere near an agreement.”

Meanwhile lawmakers at the European parliament said the cuts went too far and the new draft “cannot be the starting point for an agreement.”

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