European Union leaders are due to begin a two-day summit in Brussels to try to strike a deal on the next seven years of EU spending.

High EU expenditure at a time of cutbacks and austerity across the continent is the main issue dividing the 27-member states.

They failed to reach a compromise at a similar summit last November.

The European Commission, which is the EU's executive body, had originally wanted a budget ceiling of 1 trillion euros for 2014-2020, a 5 percent increase.

In November that was trimmed back to €973 billion and later revised down to €943 billion.

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