Deals, deals, deals: who needs them?

At a special meeting of the European Council on 20-21 February, EU leaders failed to reach an agreement on the organisation’s budget for 2021-27. As Iain Begg explains, the delicate process of negotiating the EU’s multi-annual financial framework (MFF) has been further complicated this time around by Brexit, with some states believing the loss of the UK’s budget contributions should result in a drop in aggregate spending, and others arguing the richest member states should fill the gap by contributing more.