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European Council

The important thing is that the Commission’s review will relate to the whole of the budget, including the CAP, abatement and everything to do with how the EU is financed. The EU will then have to take decisions on the basis of that review, but I think that there is increasing recognition that we need that fundamental restructuring. It was never going to happen this December; it was going to happen only once a deal was secured for the short term this December and then followed up by a mid-term review that would allow us to make that fundamental reform. It is possible to achieve that, but it will mean increasing the pressure for change within Europe. Frankly, that is best achieved by forming alliances with other like-minded countries in the EU, and those alliances would all have been put at risk if we had not tried to secure a proper budget in the meantime.