The negotiations started at 6:30 p.m. and blew through the 10:30 p.m. deadline without dinner or an agreement. Parliament’s chief negotiator Miapetra Kumpula-Natri snacked on Haribo candies during the six-hour talks. [...]
The plan almost died last September, just days before Juncker’s state of the union speech, when an argument over the fine print broke out and pushed everyone back to the drawing board. [...]
As negotiations approached midnight, Malta defied two of the EU’s strongest members and push for a deal that benefited Baltic and Scandinavian nations at the expense of Germany and France, which wanted to protect their mobile operators and their high retail prices, according to people in the room. Although Malta is the EU member that would benefit most from the higher fees, the island nation wanted a deal.
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