EU finance ministers agreed Friday to extend a deadline for Britain to pay a huge 2.1-billion-euro bill until September 2015

EU finance ministers agreed Friday to extend a deadline for Britain to pay a huge 2.1-billion-euro bill until September 2015, with finance minister George Osborne hailing it as a victory in his country's latest showdown with Brussels.
  
Prime Minister David Cameron had refused to meet the "unacceptable" demand by the original December 1 cut-off, and the new deadline means he will not have to pay before tense general elections in Britain in May.
  
Osborne said Britain would only pay back half the amount in two instalments next year, because of arrangements involving London's cherished rebate from the EU, but other European sources insisted the amount was the same.
  
"This is far beyond what anyone expected us to achieve, and it's a result for Britain," Osborne told reporters after a meeting his counterparts in Brussels. The original bill was based on a recalculation of member states' budgets over several years, but only emerged at a summit in late October, giving Britain only a few weeks to pay up.
  
France and Germany were set for large payouts under the new rules, while the Netherlands and Italy faced payment demands that were smaller than that of Britain.