News In Brief
| Brussels
EC officials unable to agree on funding to cover subsidies
The European Community appeared headed toward a cash crisis yesterday. Foreign ministers of the 10 member countries failed to agree how to eliminate a 1984 budget deficit.
If no agreement is reached by October, the trading bloc will run out of money to pay for its fast-growing farm subsidies, according to estimates by the Common Market executive commission. That would force the individual governments to pay the outstanding bills, effectively killing the common agricultural policy that forms the foundation of the 27-year-old organization.
Meanwhile in Strasbourg, France, the newly elected European Parliament opened the first session of its five-year term yesterday by electing Pierre Pflimlin president. Mr. Pflimlin is a French deputy representing the center of Western Europe's political spectrum.
