Failure was finally the result after more than a day's meeting in Brussels.

Shortly after 7 pm on Friday evening, news came that the summit was adjourned without a settlement.

- In the past few weeks and the last few days we have worked very hard to try to reach a settlement. Unfortunately, today we have discovered that it is impossible to reach. We need more time, says EU Permanent Council President Charles Michel at his press conference.

"It's taking its time"

How the work on the long-term budget proceeds is still unclear.

- We will now look to the future how we can work on this subject to reach unity in the Council (among EU heads of state and government), says Michel.

-We need to have some informal consultations over the next few days or weeks to see what is the best way to work. Everything is still on the table. I am convinced that if we continue with a respectful dialogue, it is possible to reach a settlement, says the Belgian former prime minister.

- The work goes on uninterrupted. We know that we have quite a long distance ahead of us to reach a consensus, ”in turn says EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

- This is democracy. We have 27 different member countries with 27 different interests. I think it is a good tradition in a democracy to debate different views and different focus that is put forward. And it takes time, says von der Leyen at the press conference.

Swedish skepticism

Sweden has been among the countries that have been most skeptical of draft budgets. Together with the Netherlands, Austria and Denmark, Sweden considers that the expenditure ceiling is too high. But neither are the many Member States that want to guard the EU's agricultural and regional aid, such as Poland, Hungary and Spain, are satisfied.

A number of different meetings in different formats were held on Friday to find unity, without success.

The size of the EU's long-term budget for 2021-2027 is one of the major stumbling blocks. EU President Michel, in his current proposal, has set the spending cap of EUR 1 095 billion.

This can be compared to the ceiling of EUR 1 083 billion for 2014-2020. In that figure, the support received by the UK before leaving the EU is excluded.

What makes the budget negotiations particularly difficult this time is that the British are leaving a big hole in funding the EU budget. They paid 60-70 billion more annually than they received back in the form of EU support. The question now is whose money will fill that hole.