Austerity for 2012 EU budget

The EU's 27 national governments and the European Parliament on Saturday agreed to limit spending to 129 billion euros in the 2012 budget, up 2% from 2011, the Polish EU presidency said. "The agreement was reached unanimously," said under-secretary of state for finance Jacek Dominik, who chaired the marathon meeting which started Friday evening. The limit was imposed by European governments that have been forced to cut their own budgets and impose austerity measures due to the debt crisis. The agreement came as a defeat for European Parliament members who had voted on October 26 for a free-spending budget of 133.1 billion euros ($180 billion).