Spanish PM rejects proposed 75-bn-euro EU budget cut

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Saturday rejected as "unacceptable" a proposal from EU President Herman Van Rompuy to cut the bloc's 2014-2020 budget by 75 billion euros ($95 billion). "The government does not like this budget and we have made that known to the (European) institutions and we hope that there will be another proposal that will be more reasonable," Rajoy said. Rajoy said Spain objected to Van Rompuy's proposed spending cuts to agriculture funding, money for Spain's regions and the EU's development budget, known as the Cohesion Fund. Spain stands to lose almost 20 billion euros in funds from Brussels in the next budget, with a 30-percent cut in funding for its regional governments and a 17-percent cut in its agriculture funding, according to an EU source. Van Rompuy on Wednesday proposed hefty budget cuts including 29.5 billion euros from Cohesion Fund payments and 25.5 billion euros from agriculture spending -- proposals already rejected by several countries, including France, Poland and Romania.