Posted on 02/18/2003 9:14:56 PM PST by FairOpinion
Eastern Europe reacted angrily yesterday to French threats that its support for America's policy on Iraq could prove costly. Leaders heaped criticism on President Jacques Chirac, who had said Eastern Europe's "infantile" support for America might result in the European Union blocking expansion next year.
President Ion Iliescu of Romania led the counter-attack, describing M Chirac's words as an affront to East Europe's newly liberated nations.
"Such reproaches are totally unjustified, unwise, and undemocratic," he said in Brussels, where he was attending a post-summit gathering of East European leaders yesterday which backed the EU's tough new line on Iraq.
"It is unwise to separate countries into pro-American and anti-American. I thought it was outdated to say 'He who is not with us is against us'," he added.
One diplomat from the region said M Chirac spoke in a tone that not even the Soviet Union would have used with its Warsaw Pact clients during its 40-year dominance of the region.
But M Chirac's comments were taken up by the French defence minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, who reminded the eight states preparing for EU accession on May Day next year that their place in the club was not guaranteed. A blocking referendum could be called at any time in any EU member state before then, she noted.
"We could have expected that the countries that want to join us strike up a cautious position," she said, alluding to two sets of letters signed by 13 "New Europe" states in opposition to France and Germany's anti-war stance.
"I'm worried, and I say it very clearly, because the entry into the EU has to be ratified. In the interest of these countries themselves, I say take care that there will not be a reaction from citizens, saying these countries do not want peace inside the European family."
Her comments left it unclear whether it is now the French government's policy to unpick the agreement reached at the EU summit in Copenhagen last December, which gave the final go-ahead for Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Cyprus, and Malta to join the EU in 2004, with Bulgaria and Romania following in 2007, and Turkey later.
Britain yesterday sought to make the most of the French outburst. Tony Blair said he would have liked leaders of the accession countries to have been at Monday's EU summit, from which they were excluded at the insistence of France and Germany.
"They have as much right to speak up as Britain or France or any other member of the EU today because they are coming in next year as full members of the EU," he said.
Eastern Europe had recent experience of tyranny and of the value of close transatlantic relations in defeating it. "They know the value of Europe and America standing together."
But there was little need to encourage anti-French sentiment in the east of the continent yesterday. The Polish deputy foreign minister, Adam Rotfeld, said: "France has a right to its opinion and Poland has the right to decide what is good for it. France should respect that."
The Slovak foreign minister, Eduard Kukan, said: "I don't understand why Chirac didn't criticise Italy, Spain, and Portugal who have the same opinion as us. I don't like that."
In the Czech Republic, which has long enthusiastically backed America, opinion makers said M Chirac's comments were in danger of furthering the cause of anti-expansionists.
"In a very undiplomatic way these comments make it very difficult for us to pursue membership of the EU on the basis that it is a community of equals," said Jiri Pehe, a former presidential adviser. "We're talking about joining a club in which if you have your own opinion you are told to shut up."
On the online chat site of the liberal daily Mlada Fronta Dnes, the reaction was scathing towards M Chirac, with some contributors comparing the French president's behaviour with France's betrayal of Czechoslovakia shortly before the invasion of Hitler in 1938 when it refused to help to defend the country.
In Poland which has been a staunch supporter of US policy towards Iraq and is the largest of the newcomers to the EU, commentators said M Chirac had no right to criticise the views of an independent country.
"President Chirac's reaction is very strange," said Prof Elzbieta Kawecka-Wyrzykowska, an expert in EU affairs at the Warsaw School of Economics. "It's as if he feels candidate countries have no right to express their opinion on the foreign policy of the EU."
No EU member state has plans to hold a referendum on expansion, but France retains the right to opt for a vote instead of ratifying the accession treaties by parliamentary procedure.
You've hit the nail on the head. :-)
Actually Chirac's response was very French. Delusional and hubristic.
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