Germany aims to settle EU budget within weeks - official

Germany aims to get agreement on the European Union's budget, including a 750 billion euro ($878.18 billion) European recovery plan, in the coming weeks, a senior government official said on Wednesday ahead of a summit of EU leaders.

Hungary and Poland have said they might veto any budget plan that included sanctions for countries that failed to uphold certain standards of probity and rule of law, throwing the passage of the budget plan into doubt.

The official said that the rule of law was not an official topic of discussion for the summit but would certainly be discussed on the sidelines. ($1 = 0.8540 euros)