No rest for the Danes as 25 prime ministers lobby into small hours

Luxembourg's long-serving premier, Jean-Claude Juncker, was soundly asleep in his Copenhagen hotel when the phone rang at 3am yesterday. On the line was the prime minister of one eastern European country demanding more cash for his country.

As the deadline loomed for a deal to admit 10 new nations to the EU, the vast and anonymous conference centre resounded with the noise generated by this complex, multilingual and increasingly fractious haggle.

This may have been the dawn of a new era in Europe but the subject of the summit was all too familiar: money. And this time, 25 nations were trying to do a deal rather than the normal 15.

On Thursday night, the summit began with a dinner of monkfish and venison in truffle sauce, washed down by premier-cru Chablis. This was a banquet not for the new member states but for the existing 15 and the pace was set by France and Germany.

Jacques Chirac, the French President, and Gerhard Schröder, the German Chancellor, insisted that the subsidies offered to the new member states should not go beyond the €40bn (£26bn) proposed by the Danish presidency of the EU. That, at least, gave the Danish premier, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, some concrete figures to negotiate over and as yesterday began he started detailed talks with each of the 10 nations bidding to join the EU.

Poland, the biggest of the aspiring countries, has also been the more forthright in rejecting the deal. One reason for the obduracy was clear to see in the press room, where some 250 Polish journalists and four TV channels were following every move of the talks.

Under acute political pressure to get a better deal, the Polish Prime Minister, Leszek Miller, was holding out for every concession. The first offer was rejected, prompting a second round of talks between Mr Rasmussen and the leaders of the 10 countries.

By mid-afternoon they were back face to face, with Denmark making another proposal, this time finding an extra €1bn through creative accountancy for Poland while the other applicant states were to receive a total of €300m.

Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary still rejected it.

"The Poles were grandstanding," said one British source. "It will be hell when Poland actually joins."