Bilaterals, funding tweaks and 'standing around' to mark EU budget summit

Officials in Brussels are preparing for what is expected to be a lengthy, complex and quite probably ill-tempered summit on the EU's 2014-2020 budget. But optimism about reaching a deal has revived to an extent.

EU leaders will sit down for the summit meeting at 8pm Brussels time on Thursday evening (22 November).

Each of them will already have had a face-to-face meeting with EU president Herman Van Rompuy and EU commission president Jose-Manuel Barroso earlier during the day.\n ...