EU finance ministers looked set on Friday to allow Britain to pay in instalments a massive 2.1-billion-euro surcharge after london set up a new showdown with Brussels by refusing to settle the bill by next month.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has refused to meet a December 1 repayment deadline, saying it could hasten his increasingly eurosceptic country's path towards the EU exit door in a 2017 referendum.
A proposal to allow Britain to defer payments of the bill has been introduced by Italy, which holds the rotating EU presidency, and would also help out the Netherlands which has been landed with a 642 million bill.The surcharges are based on a recalculation of member states' budgets over several years but first emerged at a summit in October, sparking Cameron's fury at the short deadline.Finance Minister George Osborne vowed to get a "better deal" for his country as he arrived for the meeting."The demand that Britain pays 1.7 billion pounds on the 1st of December is unacceptable," he told reporters. "I will make sure that we get a better deal for Britain.