BRUSSELS, Dec 1: EU governments, the European Commission and the European Parliament have reached a compromise for a total budget next year of 111.969 billion euros ($131.516 billion), officials said on Thursday. The agreement should end a standoff between EU member states which originally wanted the budget limited to 111.4 billion euros and the European Parliament which was seeking a budget of 115.4 billion euros.

Member states and the parliament still have to formally endorse the budget for it to go into effect. Earlier efforts to agree on the budget ground to a halt last week as the parliament sought more cash than some big contributors were willing to fork over.—AFP