The European Community is close tobankruptcy, the EC's Executive Commission said in a report.
    In its bluntest ever warning about the state of EC
finances, it said "The Community is at present faced with a
budgetary situation which can only be characterised as being on
the brink of bankruptcy."
    The report, dated Saturday, is meant to set the scene for a
major change in the way the EC is financed, which foreign
ministers are due to start debating next month.
    The Commission blamed the EC's new cash crisis on the
"considerable reluctance" of governments to pay for decisions
they themselves have taken.
    "Budgetary practices have emerged which fictitiously
disguise the real impact of expenditure decisions," it said.
Adding that such practices were unacceptable.
    It put the EC's accumulated liabilities at the end of last
year at 12.2 billion European Currency Units and estimated
these would rise by a further five billion Ecus this year.
 REUTER
