LUXEMBOURG : Salvaging the EC

Paying the European Community’s bills will top the official agenda when finance ministers of the 12 European Community nations meet today and the foreign ministers assemble next Monday.

Inevitably, however, the ministers will also confront how to manage EC affairs now that Danish voters have refused to ratify a treaty for closer economic and political union.

Jacques Delors, president of the EC’s policy-making commission, has proposed increasing the Community budget by about 30% after inflation during the next five years.

Much of the increase is needed to transfer more money from the EC’s richer nations to its poorer ones, a strategy enshrined in the treaty that Denmark rejected.