EU crisis deepens as France and Germany gang up on Britain

AFP ^ | 06/10/05

[nypokerface]

PARIS (AFP) - A crisis in the European Union sparked by French and Dutch voters' rejections of the EU's constitution worsened when France and Germany ganged up on Britain ahead of an important summit next week meant to reorganise the bloc's budget for 2007-2013.

French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, meeting together in Paris, told a joint news conference they wanted Britain to give up a hard-won five-billion-euro (six-billion-dollar) annual rebate it gets from the EU budget -- something British Prime Minister Tony Blair has bluntly and repeatedly ruled out.

"Above all our British friends must recognise how things have changed and the need for greater equity in the financial charges that each country bears," Chirac said.

The two leaders, representing the Franco-German axis that has long driven the European project, also urged the process of ratifying the moribund constitution to continue, despite the two referendum defeats that theoretically kill it off and Blair's decision to suspend a plebiscite on the charter next year.

"We are both in agreement in reaffirming how much the European Union... needs above all to unite and to reflect," Chirac said.

Schroeder, at his side, said it was "premature" to consider the EU constitution a dead letter.

France and Germany's forceful and shared stance, and Britain's refusal to yield set the scene for a dramatic summit of EU heads of state and government in Brussels next Thursday and Friday.

The atmosphere was expected to be especially tense between Chirac and Blair, whose usually polite relationship has degenerated into acrimony at times in the past over EU matters.

Chirac said the EU rebate Britain won in 1984 after tough negotiations by then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher was "now old".

He said each EU state "must make an effort" so that the union's financial problems do not exacerbate the political ones revealed by the resistance to the EU constitution.

But British Prime Minister Tony Blair has refused to give way, calling instead for a "fundamental review" of EU spending -- implied to mean a revision of costly EU agricultural subsidies from which French farmers greatly benefit.

The French president, whose authority at home has been enormously weakened by his country's rejection of the EU charter, countered by saying he would not overturn a deal he and Schroeder struck in 2002 to keep the agricultural subsidy system intact until 2013.

"Everyone must pay his share... but I am not prepared to compromise" on the EU Common Agriculture Policy, he said.

Schroeder did hold out the promise that France and Germany were ready to make a unspecified, "constructive compromise" at the summit.

It was the leaders' second get-together in the wake of French and Dutch rejection of the EU charter in the past two weeks.

A former European commissioner, British parliamentarian Neil Kinnock, accused Chirac of using the row over the British budget rebate as a diversion from his own problems over the EU constitution.

"Chirac playing these diversionary games simply adds to the discredit," said Kinnock, who is a member of Blair's Labour Party.

Commentators noted that Chirac and Schroeder will be going into the summit severely weakened.

Chirac faces a lame-duck presidency to the end of his mandate in 2007 because of the referendum debacle, while various electoral defeats in Germany have left Schroeder with little prospect of holding on to power in polls next year.

On the other hand, Blair last month won a third mandate and is governing one of the rare vibrant economies among the major EU members.

A veto from him would scuttle the summit and delay EU budget decision to early next year.

"Tony Blair may not have the intention of ruining the European summit. But he has the power to do so. That's his strength," the French newspaper Le Figaro said.

[Atlantic Friend]

"France and Germany gang up on Britain Just like WWII."

I'm sorry, but what bizarre alternate history book does this come from ?

[Atlantic Friend]

"Didn' they try this in about 1940-41 ?"

As a matter of fact no, "they" didn't.

[MadIvan]

The Normans are the descendants of Vikings, they may have spoke French, but they are not French.

Ivan

[Atlantic Friend]

"Say, didn't we help the UK kick the Franco-German axis' a$$ in WWII?"

Er, no. I'm not sure why, exactly, but it may have something to do with WWII seeing the UK and France ganging up against Germany and France.

[MadIvan]

Heavens, Ivan, with all due respect, you don't know what the French or Germans think or believe, and I don't know what the British think or believe.

Try again. We are living with the products of our thoughts and beliefs all around us - our systems of government, our economic structures, etc. I don't believe in dirgisme, and Britain traditionally doesn't have that as a policy. I don't believe in only having a semi-free press, which is what France has - to the point you lot didn't even know that Mitterand was dying. I don't believe in appeasement of Saddam Hussein, which the vast majority of Frenchmen, if the polls are to be believed, wanted.

France has made it clear what it stands for. Admittedly, not every Frenchman believes the same things, but the overriding philosophy is something I profoundly disagree with.

Ivan

[EternalVigilance]

A pack of socialists, fighting over the rubble they've created...

[Atlantic Friend]

"Well, I don't know if it counts for much, but I really appreciate you coming one here with a French perspective despite all the vitriol."

Absolument ! Good work, dear Vicomte.

"Atlantic Friend seems to be drifting away, but you seem like an able replacment. Just don't fall in love with a right wing American girl like he did :-)"

LOL ! Yes, marrying a stunningly beautiful Conservative girl from Louisiana truly was my demise, FR-wise. The funny part is that she now gets madder than I used to when she reads the usual bashing comments. I'll have to teach her the secret art of the Gallic Shrug, which is, as Mr Galouzeau de Villepin will soon realize, even more powerful than the French genius when it comes to politics.

[Atlantic Friend]

"The Normans are the descendants of Vikings, they may have spoke French, but they are not French."

Well, as you probbaly know, there is no such thing as an ethnic French, as in our veins runs the blood of Celts, Wisigoths, Normans, Romans, and various Germanic tribes. Ethnic purity is usually seen on insular populations (and wannabe Nazi regimes of course)

[Atlantic Friend]

"I don't believe in only having a semi-free press, which is what France has - to the point you lot didn't even know that Mitterand was dying."

The press is free - no newspaper is state-run, and in Mitterrand's case the problem was not the press being told what to write by the government, but rather of the government releasing false health reports.

"I don't believe in appeasement of Saddam Hussein, which the vast majority of Frenchmen, if the polls are to be believed, wanted."

I have yet to see a poll asking the population whether they wanted to appease Saddam Hussein, as all the polls were about approving the militray intervention. The French opposition (though horrendously overplayed by this de Villepin buffoon) hinged on the reasons for the intervention, reasons which are, to this day, hotly debated even in the US and the UK.

Regards,

[Centurion2000]

"Didn' they try this in about 1940-41 ?"

As a matter of fact no, "they" didn't.

The word Vichy mean anything to you ??

[Atlantic Friend]

"The word Vichy mean anything to you ??"

Please tell me when the Vichy regime did gang up with Germany against the United Kingdom, sir ? Even after operation Catapult, which resulted in a British attack of the neutralized French fleet at Mers El Kebir totalling 2,000 dead French sailors, Vichy refused to declare war on the UK, though Germany was only too keen to suggest such a move.

[jveritas]

Entire French divisions surrendered without any significant fight, even the Germans were shocked by this cowardly attitude and unwillingness to fight on the French side. The French people shall be ashamed with such an unbelievably humiliating defeat in WW II.

Read my post # 96.

[jveritas]

You never fought in WWII you just surrendered. And yes there were some cowardly France Vichy troops who fought the British in North Africa.

[jveritas]

This guy is so desperate to show a victory that he is going back almost one millennium, talk about pathetic, that what the delusional Arabs do to remember their 1500 years old victories. I guess it is the psychology of constantly defeated people (Arabs, French) that they get so delusional and to escape their bitter reality go back hundreds of years ago to remember their achievements or victories.

And you are right the Normans are not the cowardly Gallic race that make most of the French people.

[Atlantic Friend]

"You never fought in WWII you just surrendered"

Oh ? My God, then I wonder where the 200,000 dead French soldiers come from. And what about the 100,000 French civilians killed throughout the German occupation ?

"And yes there were some cowardly France Vichy troops who fought the British in North Africa."

I like your logic : when they don't fight, they are cowards, and when they do, they are cowards. Well, just for History's sake I'll add that the Vichy troops that fired upon Allied troops (among them, surprise, Free French forces, notably in Syria/Lebanon) did so after the invasion of Vichy territory by the aforementioned Allied troops.

Don't get me wrong, if it had been me, I would have had the whole Vichy territory invaded, but the truth is that Vichy never attacked or invaded anyone - as it had almost no Army, no Air force, and no Fleet.

[jveritas]

YOU SURRENDERED IN WWII. Are you trying to re-write such an obvious history. You fought from May 10 1940 to June 22 1940 and then YOU SURRENDERED. In fact the British expeditionary force who was sent to France in 1940 fought much more aggressively, and much more bravely to defend France and Belgium than the millions of troops in the French army. YOU SURRENDERED! Est que tu comprends?

Just a reminder

image

[Atlantic Friend]

"YOU SURRENDERED IN WWII"

Yes, after a lightning and devastating blitzkrieg campaign that killed 200,000 of our troops, destroyed Dutch and Belgian troops, and utterly shattered the British Expeditionary Force which had to pull out at Dunkirk under protection of what was left of the French army (operation Dynamo).

"In fact the British expeditionary force who was sent to France in 1940 fought much more aggressively, and much more bravely to defend France and Belgium than the millions of troops in the French army."

They were wiped out, just as the French Army and if it hadn't been for the Channel and the valor of British and other Allied pilots, England would have known its first invasion since 1066. As England then had its share of homegrown fascists, like Mosley, there is no doubt it would have suffer the infamy of having a puppet government.

Now, if you ask me to comment on the valor of the British troops during WW2, I'll be only happy to give them a glowing record and to thank them profusively for having stood up to Hitler alone from June 1940 to december 1941, when Hitler made the mistake of declaring war on the US.

Interestingly enough, 200,000 is pretty much the number of casulaties the US Army sustained in its European campaign several years later, so you can stop spitting on their graves...

[jveritas]

Interestingly enough, 200,000 is pretty much the number of casulaties the US Army sustained in its European campaign several years later, so you can stop spitting on their graves...

Because you fought stupidly and cowardly... When you lose 200,000 soldiers in six weeks and then you surrender than it is very obvious that you are STUPID and you are COWARDS.

Another reminder for you:

image

image

image

image

image

[Atlantic Friend]

"Because you fought stupidly and cowardly... When you lose 200,000 soldiers in six weeks and then you surrender than it is very obvious that you are STUPID and you are COWARDS."

Ah, spitting on the graves of fallen soldiers, apparently the ultimate act of bravery in your book... You probably think that makes you a tough guy ?

Well, the French General Headquarters were certainly not up to the task, and the fact the nation was bled dry in WW1, sustaining 1,400,000 losses out of a country of 40 million inhabitants didn't help one little bit.

To have an idea of what impact WW1 had, imagine what would ow more isolationnist the US (with roughly 4 times France's population in the early 20th century) would have been if there losses had been around 4 million...

[Atlantic Friend]

Speaking of reminders, do you know the "weeping Frenchman" picture was taken by an American reporter (as the US were neutral at that time) ?

And it was not taken in June, 1940 as the German panzers paraded in Paris. It was apparently taken on November the 11th, 1940 (WW1 Victory Day as you will remember), as the old French Army regiments held their last commemoration before being disbanded.

This American reporter wanted to rally America to the Allied cause, and thought this picture would convey the dreadfulness of the Nazi tyranny.

Isn't that ironic that you now want to use it in a very different way ?