The European Union (EU) pressures European Economic Community (EEC) members Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway to provide more funds if they wanted to do business with Bulgaria and Romania.

EEC member states make annual payments to the EU to receive access to the union's internal market, EUobserver said.

Norwegian Ambassador to the EU Oda Helen Sletnes said that Norway had made the EU a generous offer which would lay the basis for the payment agreement.

EC said that the money offered were insufficient.

Matthias Brinkmann, EC’s representative in the negotiations, said that equal treatment of Bulgaria and Romania and the other 10 countries that joined the EU in 2004 was still missing.

Iceland, Norway and Lichtenstein had to provide an amount of money proportional to the amount they paid after the last EU enlargement. EC wanted to avoid discrimination towards the new EU members, EUobserver said.

At first EC wanted the three countries to pay 71 million euro more than their current payment. EC decreased the amount it demanded to 65 million euro, but Iceland, Norway and Lichtenstein agreed to pay only 55 million euro.

The decision on the payment would probably be taken by mid-March 2007, EUobserver said.