LONDON, Dec. 14 (Xinhuanet) -- Britain on Wednesday unveiled its latest bid to break the European Union's budget deadlock by proposing a small increase in the size of the budget.

    But the proposals made no new cuts to Britain's rebate, which has long been criticized by France and other EU member states.

    Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in a statement that the revised proposals were fair to the EU's new member states.

    Britain would increase the 2007-13 budget by a total of 2.5 billion euros (about three billion US dollars), said Straw.

    The new proposals "help the new member states in the enlarged EU by building their economies and societies, and they more fairly distribute the costs among the better off nations," he said.

    Straw said there would be increased structural and cohesion fund support for Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia and Latvia, and extra money would also be provided to decommission nuclear power plants in Slovakia and Lithuania.

    "The proposals keep the rebate. Indeed the rebate will rise, from an annual average over recent years of five billion euros (about six billion US dollars) to around seven billion (about 8.4 billion US dollars)," he said.

    "The proposals ensure there can be no fundamental change in the rebate without fundamental reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. All spending, including on agriculture, will be subject to a review during the coming budget period," added Straw.

    The proposals would also commit EU leaders to increase spending on research and development by 75 percent between 2006 and 2013.

    "The overall ceiling for the Budget for 2007-2013 with these changes is 849.3 billion euros (about 1019.16 billion US dollars)," said the statement.

    "We remain convinced that these proposals are good for Britain and good for Europe, and offer a sound basis for agreement at this week's European Council," Straw added.

    Last week, Britain proposed an 8 billion euros (9.6 billions US dollars) cut in the rebate over the seven years. However, but it was rejected with other EU member states calling for bigger cuts to Britain's annual rebate.

    The new EU budget proposals are revised before the EU summit in Brussels on December 15-16, at which Britain is keen to break the deadlock over the seven-year budget before ending its EU presidency. Enditem