EU crisis deepens as France and Germany gang up on Britain

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.

Why did you let the German panzers isolate you when you had more tanks than them? Because you have dumb military strategy and you were cowards to fight them.

And so did the Allied (French, Belgian, Dutch, Canadian, British, American, Russian, Chinese, etc.) troops that found themselves in a similar position.

Belgian and Dutch had very small armies compared to the millions of troops in the French army and they had few armors and weapons compared to the French. The French army was the larger than the German Whermacht and it had more weapons and they still surrender.

The US army in Philippines have surrendered but the USA did not surrender and they went to fight the war and win it. You have totally surrendered, do you understand it is not that one of your division or armies surrender the whole FRENCH NATION SURRENDERED. You are making the dumbest excuses to justify your cowardliness.

You see this is exactly why in America we despise your French arrogance. You do not want to admit that you were defeated, crushed and surrender, but you rather justify the reasons for your defeat, cowardliness, and surrender, and as if it is nothing. Vicomte13 has his tag line as Et Alors? i.e. SO WHAT? and that is exactly what you and him are doing on this forum. You are telling us SO WHAT if the French surrendered to the Germans everyone does it and you are using twisted logic and facts to stupidly just your nation surrender. That is the cowardly attitude that prevented you from fighting the Germans, SO WHAT, EL ALors if the Germans occupy France. No Frenchies, not everyone surrendered to the Germans, or Japanese. The United Sates lost few battle here and there and some troops had surrendered but at the end we crushed our enemies and put them to their knees because we decided to fight and win, unlike you cowards who decided to surrender the whole coward nation of yours in the first sign of pressure. And we have liberated you ungrateful people when ten of thousands of our troops spelled blood in to give you freedom. Not only we had liberated you but we gave you tens of billions (hundred of billions in todays money) to rebuild your nation.

You are really a despicable people! Enough no more discussion with you, I am wasting my time with people who are just too arrogant, to coward, and they have the attitude of surrender and defeat. I am glad that you were not with us in Iraq, we do not need cowards like you fighting on our side. The terrorists would have hit few dozens of you if you were in Iraq and they would have brought your coward nations to it knees.

An American general once said: I better have a German army in front of me and want to fight me rather then have a French army behind me who want to protect my back. He was absolutely correct.

Please try to remember that Atlantic Friend is A FRIEND. He is a fellow conservative and has extended his hand to many of us here at FR. He is one of a very few friendly voices that we Americans hear coming from France, and what does he get for his trouble? A myriad of insults, everything from his personal hygiene to the honor of his nation. Enough already. Re-fighting WWII will not help anything or any one.

Atlantic Friend, once again I admire your intestinal fortitude in coming here, and I appreciate hearing another point of view. I hope all is well with you and your lovely new bride. God bless and hang in there.

"Belgian and Dutch had very small armies compared to the millions of troops in the French army and they had few armors and weapons compared to the French. The French army was the larger than the German Whermacht and it had more weapons and they still surrender."

Strangely, not a word in your post about the British troops who surrendered in Tobruk to the Germans and Italians or in Singapore to the Japanese... Or about the Russians troops who surrendered during Barbarossa. Would that be because it doesn't fit your bizarre "racially induced cowardliness" agenda ?

"The US army in Philippines have surrendered but the USA did not surrender and they went to fight the war and win it. You have totally surrendered, do you understand it is not that one of your division or armies surrender the whole FRENCH NATION SURRENDERED. You are making the dumbest excuses to justify your cowardliness."

Once again, and as even the most superficial brush with history or military science would tell, it's much easier to fight on when your cities are NOT occupied, your factories NOT destroyed, your homeland NOT invaded.

"You are telling us SO WHAT if the French surrendered to the Germans everyone does it and you are using twisted logic and facts to stupidly just your nation surrender."

Wow, I'm sorry I'm trying logic and facts with you - see, I thought you were interested in Truth !

For the last time I tell you that you are stupidly equating surrendering of divisions in a lost battle with the surrendering of a whole cowardly nation. The British, and the Americans have surrendered some divisions that were far far far away from their homeland but they did not surrender as whole nation but they went to fight very hard and won the war and so did the Russians. On the other hand France surrendered millions of troops and all arms and weapons when she was numerically equal if not superior in arms and soldiers to the German enemy who attacked her and utterly defeated her. What France lacked is the will to fight because France was a cowardly nation, period there is no other way to justify it. I told you that I watched a very detailed documentary of the battle of France and it showed Germans were shocked by the unwillingness of the French to fight, they could not believe what they have seen from such a cowardly nation. Now stop your stupid arguments and excuses and just admit the following:

FRANCE HAD TOTALLY SURRENDERED.

"And France SURRENDERED. Stop rewrting history, it is very stupid to rewrite such obvious facts and history."

There is no rewrite of history going on.

France was divided. The Parliament did indeed surrender, and Marechal Petain became the leader of Vichy France. His stated purpose was "Eviter le pire" - to avoid the worst - he wanted to keep France from being completely dissolved into Germany. He did not, however, allow his regime to declare war on the Allies. The French government surrendered, but did not change sides.

And although the French government surrendered, the French did not all surrender. There was De Gaulle and the Free French, 400,000 of them under arms in Eisenhower's army by D-Day. This is also part of the historical record.

That 50,000 Allied airmen shot down over Europe were spirited through France by the Underground, back to allied territory to fight again, this was an immense contribution to the Allied war effort by those French who did not capitulate to the Germans.

People are not so simpleminded as you seem to think.
The French government surrendered. So what? Many, many French people rejected that act of their government and continued to resist the enemy. The American President Eisenhower recognized their contributions and did not denigrate them. You want to because of what has transpired since then. You are angry at modern France and are pretending that the entire French nation was your enemy in World War II. Eisenhower certainly did not think so, and neither did the great Churchill.
You are attempting to rewrite history to coincide with your current passions and your anti-French animus, but it does not work.

"You just do not admit you are bunch of cowards who surrendered to the Germans in WW II."

You're right, I do not admit that the French are a bunch of cowards today, 60 years later, with two or three new generations of people alive now, and nobody who took the fateful decisions of 1940 still alive.

I also do not admit that those men of 1940 were cowards.
The Vichy French were not COWARDS, they were fascists. There is a difference. Part of the division in France was that there were too many people who agreed with the Nazi ideas. They did not like Germans in their country, but presented with the fait accompli of the Germans being there, they were of a mind to approve of fascism with a French face. They despised Communists more than they did Fascists.

It was a dangerous and divided time.

"FRANCE HAD TOTALLY SURRENDERED."

First, this is untrue.
France did NOT "totally" surrender. France lost a battle, and with it, control of the French mainland, but the French did not surrender. 400,000 Free French troops in Eisenhower's Army. Free French pilots in the RAF. The Underground saved 50,000 Allied pilots, in fearful danger to themselves and their families stuck in France under Nazi occupation.
Some French politicians purported to surrender for France, but other leaders never did, and a sizeable portion of the French people did not either.

Second: where was America during all of this?
Hitler was devouring democracies.
Boatloads of European Jews were turned back at the Statue of Liberty by the Americans.
The Japanese were devouring China.
Where was America?
Why did America do nothing?
Were the Americans afraid to fight?
Or were they just idiots, thinking that the rest of the world could fall to evil but that they could never be hurt themselves by it?

Which was it that kept America out of the war? Was it American cowardice or American stupidity?

Second: where was America during all of this? Hitler was devouring democracies. Boatloads of European Jews were turned back at the Statue of Liberty by the Americans. The Japanese were devouring China. Where was America? Why did America do nothing? Were the Americans afraid to fight? Or were they just idiots, thinking that the rest of the world could fall to evil but that they could never be hurt themselves by it? Which was it that kept America out of the war? Was it American cowardice or American stupidity?

The typical "ungratefulness of the French showing its true colors". The United States saved you from Nazi occupation and liberated your country and now you are blaming them why they did not come early. The United States does not have to defend anyone in this world, and when they do so it is out for their love for freedom of other people and they do it all the time, in WW I, WW II, Cold war, Kuwait war 1991, Afghanistan war, and Iraq war. The United States freed hundred of millions of people in the last one hundred year far greater than any other nation in history of mankind.

"The United States does not have to defend anyone in this world, and when they do so it is out for their love for freedom of other people"

If this is so as an absolute principle, then why did the Americans wait three years to enter? Leave France aside. London and Conventry and Birmingham and Southampton, Manchester and the cities of the English south: all burnt to the ground by relentless Nazi bombing. Holland, Belgium, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary: all free countries, all devoured by the Nazis with no American response.

Pearl Harbor is attacked, and America joins the war.
Fortunately for the whole world, the Japanese were foolish enough the attack the Americans. There is no reason, absent that attack, to believe that the Americans were ever going to get involved.

Love for democracy did not motivate the Americans to enter World War II. 9 democracies were conquered, and Britain was burnt to the ground, and menaced with becoming the tenth, and the Americans did nothing. Once the Americans were in the war, of course, they joined the British and, with the help of the Russians and allies around the world, they all helped to save the world from Nazi tyranny.
American claims of acting out of a love for democracy would ring considerably less hollow had the Americans, like the Canadians, actually fought Hitler before they were attacked. But they did not.

Which then begs the question of why the US did not enter the war earlier. Also, considering that war was brewing for a long, long time, it is stupendous that the Americans were surprised and defeated in the Philippines and Pearl Harbor. It was a dereliction on the part of the American commanders akin to Gamelin's idiot strategy for defending France in 1940.

There is no "ungratefulness" at work here. It is good that the Americans finally came and turned the tide.
But if love for democracy was their motivation, why did they wait until all of the democracies of the European continent were completely destroyed, and London was a flaming ruin? Why did the English with their Empire and the refugee elements from Europe have to defeat Hitler alone over England?
Had the Japanese not foolishly attacked the US, when would the Americans have come to fight for democracy in Europe?
Ever?

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.