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.

[Vicomte13]

I do not fabricate, as I am only interested in the truth.

I happen to think that the truth is not comfortable for either my American countrymen or my French concitoyens.
I also think that neither place is either as well off as it believes itself to be, nor as bad off either.

[JasonC]

Let's see - two lame ducks lose every vote and are facing long overdue loss of power, so they ask a winner to pay them billions in return for nothing. Yeah, that'll fly.

[investigateworld]

True enough.


'
PS The women in the Brittany area are beautiful!

[Southack]

"The French GDP grew by 2.1% in 2004. It is on track for a growth of between 1.5 and 2.5% in 2005. This is not a recession, not a decline. It is moderate growth. Faster growth would be better, of course, so long as it were sustainable."

Not really. French GDP is reported with numbers that are not adjusted for inflation.

That's also how the Chinese report their GDP growth.

But the U.S. releases GDP figures *after* inflation (i.e. CPI) has been factored in.

When adding in inflation, France and Germany have had negative GDP growth for some long time.

...But wait, there's more.

France counts its *government* spending in its GDP figures. If France borrows vast amounts of money and spends it all in one year, then France reports GDP "growth" even though all that has grown has been their government (hardly a sustainable option over the long-term).

[Southack]

"Chirac wins my vote in the "Most Inept Leader in the World" competition. He is doing everything possible to irritate his own people and the rest of the world."

Mugabe's running him a close race, though. Kim Il and Castro aren't far behind, either.

[jveritas]

You forgot to add Citibank and Bank of America in the first seven companies, these two alone have more than 600 billions dollars in revenue.

[Vicomte13]

I did not "forget".
I got the list of the top 7 from Forbes.
If you have a different source listing 7 different companies, please let me know the source and I will consider it.

[jveritas]

Listen buddy. I have been in France many times and I know how expensive is to eat out there. They give you small portion of food that cost a lot of money. And you guys sit in restaurant for two hours drinking one cup of coffee and eating a small croissants just to say you ate out. McDonald is doing great in France because you can get your meat and fat at very affordable prices. Here in the US we can eat great meals in all type of restaurants, all type of cuisines, for very affordable money and we have all type of great cuisine in the world, including yours which is by thew way is the most expensive by far.

Do you know that the US consumes over 25% of the world food.

I have seen the many poor places of Paris, Marseille, and Leon and it is very ugly. People live in absolute poverty. I have seen how people save on power because electricity is very expensive including in a Hotel that costs $ 300 a night. These very expensive Hotels that have rooms much less luxurious and much less smaller than our very cheap Motel 6 rooms. I have seen that over 60% of your cars are what we call match boxes here in the US because gas is so expensive due to stupid taxation so people cannot afford bigger, more powerful, safer, and more comfortable cars. I have seen that your own products in France like perfume, clothes, and wines are more expensive in France than what they are sold here in the US.

Now tell how do you dare you call yourself an advanced nation when three summers ago 15000 French people died in a heat wave because you do not have facilities for elderly people to go during heat waves and you medical system is so bad that they cannot save the victims of heat wave. And you arrogant idiotic Chirac was vacationing somehwere in Quebec and he did not bother to return to France until it was too late. And very few in France even criticize, at the contrary they start justifying the death on some many other causes besides that your system suck and cannot take any national crisis. This will never happen in the US because our facilities, emergency relief, and medical system will prevent it from happening. And even if it occurs a much smaller scale, let say we lose 1000 people in a five days heat wave our President will be impeached. I know France very well. You are a socialist arrogant people who live in the delusion of old Napoleonic glory (by the way Napoleon was an Italian) and deluded themselves into believing that they are a super power.

[jveritas]

Remember that Forbes has many listing and ranking criteria. A list of top 10 comapnies in sales, a list of top 10 in revenues, a list of top in profit, a list of top 10 in Market values, etc... The first seven companies that you listed are basically in Sales because they sell products like cars (GM, Ford), gasoline (Exxon Mobil, Conoco Phillips), or consumers goods (like Walmart). However bank Citgroup and Bank of America do not have "sales" for say but their combined banking service revenues top 600 billions dollars.

May be if you want to do it just only in "Sales" add the top 10 or 12 US companies in "Sales: and you will get something equivalent if not larger than the GDP of France.

[jveritas]

I did not know this SouthHack, thank you for the information.

By the way Vicomte13 is saying that the GDP in France is on its track of a growth from 1.5% to 2.5% in 2005 and it only grew by 0.2% in the first quarter of 2005.

[guitfiddlist]

EU crisis deepens as France and Germany gang up on Britain

Dang! I just checked the Freeper lobby and they're fresh out of popcorn. But I did manage to grab a couple bars of good German schadenfreude...so sit back and enjoy...this one should be good.

[jveritas]

Thank you. Sometimes you need to put arrogant and deluded people in the place where they belong.

[Vicomte13]

"Thank you. Sometimes you need to put arrogant and deluded people in the place where they belong."
"I have seen the many poor places of Paris, Marseille, and Leon and it is very ugly. People live in absolute poverty."

As ugly as the blighted parts of Washington DC, or Detroit, or the "Projects" of Chicago, or of the Bronx of New York, or of the Southern Central part of Los Angeles, where there are periodic bloody riots?
No. Not that ugly.

Or that dangerous.
Murders in United States last year:
Murders in France last year:

Heat waves.
Yes many people died in a heat wave in France.

But heat waves kill many people in the US each year also, 1000 per year:
"The heat wave in July 1995 in Chicago was one of the worst weather-related disasters in Illinois history with approximately 525 deaths over a 5-day period. As noted by Changnon et al. (1996), "The loss of human life in hot spells in summer exceeds that caused by all other weather events in the United States combined, including lightning, rainstorms/floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes." Weather hazards such as tornadoes, floods, lightning, and winter storms each result in about 100 deaths per year on average, while heat waves result in about 1000 deaths per year on average."

France is farther north than the US and has a cooler climate. It does not get very hot in France usually, and most people do not have air conditioning. Without that, when a truly brutal heat wave came, there was not the option for people to turn on the air conditioning. The same heat wave killed many in Britain and other European countries, and for the same reason.

But all of that is beside the point. You clearly have a great animus for France and French people, which is of course your right. As I read up the thread I do not discern any arrogance on the part of anyone but certain Americans. It is not an endearing quality.

[jveritas]

Of course I have a lot of problems with France and the French people as so many Americans do. The reason is that you are an "ungrateful", "arrogant", and "deluded" people who try to stab us in the back in every step we take in the world affairs. As I said your delusion of being a super power is known to everyone, and the whole world realize that you are far, far, far away from being a super power on economic, military, political, technological, or cultural levels. The whole concept of EU in the mind of the French is to create a union (it will fail in 10 years) off many countries to challenge the United States economically, politically, culturally, and militarily. The French in their deluded minds believe that they are the leaders of the EU and everyone will bow to them. Well no one in this Europe want a French politician to be their leader. In the last few years you were just lucky to have a socialist idiot in Germany who agreed to be partner with Chirac in opposing the US and allow the France idiot President to lead Germany in a suicidal economic path and an idiotic foreign policiy. Well Shroder the imbecile will be gone next year and you will get a real German leader who look after German interests not the French ones, and this whole unnatural socialist Franco-German love affair will collapse

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

"The Germans and French will have to attempt an invasion to make us cough up for their stupidity. I don't think they have sufficient testicular fortitude to even contemplate it."

Never underestimate French perfidy, it is an inherent trait of Gallic mentality.

[jveritas]

Et alors? Every person, and every people, have their defeats, disappointments and disillusionments. France and America too.

Please do not compare the US to France in this field. You guys surrendered twice to the Germans in 1871 and and 1940. I recently watched a documentary about the battle of France in 1940 and the French surrender and unwillingness to fight was astonishing and shocking even to the German Wermacht. Entire armies of the French military surrendered without a fight. It was a humiliation beyond belief. If not for the US you will be speaking German by now. And you are ungrateful and you quickly forgot that the US saved you ass in WWII. Tens of thousands of Americans soldiers died to free you from Nazi Germany. When a** hole Charles DeGaulle entered Paris after its liberation in the summer of 1944, he was so ungrateful and forgot to thank the US, British and Canadians troops for liberating his country. The ungrateful a** hole attributed the liberation and victory to few thousand Frenchmen who wanted to resist the occupation but had an absolute zero chance of winning or even dislocating one German battalion from its positions. Even in WW I, without millions of Americans and British troops you could not have won any battle against the Germans who were occupying your land.

This in addition to the Marshall plan after WW II where the US gave tens of billions of dollars for the rebuilding of Western Europe and France was the first beneficiary from this plan. These ten of billions are equivalent to hundreds of billions in todays money. Now you want to go back to Napoleon, the Italian, to get into French military victories. But remember that France was utterly defeated after Waterloo and the French surrendered. The US won all it wars, and even Vietnam was never a militarily defeat. More important we have never surrendered to anyone unlike you where surrender is always a first option. The US have liberated hundred of millions of people in the last 60 years, including Western Europe and France in WWII (you have surrendered in WW II), Eastern Europe after we won the cold war ( you were appeasing the USSR in the cold war), Kuwait in 1991 (minor contribution from France), and recently 50 millions people in Afghanistan (minor contribution from France) and Iraq when you want the brutal terrorist dictator Saddam to keep killing his people so TotalFina will have few billions dollar sin oil contracts and so your politicians will get free blood oil money from Saddam .

How many people France liberated? You have either surrendered yourself or have colonized third world nations. Please do not mention Kuwait (1991) and Afghanistan (2001), you have contributed very little and we could have done it and were going to do it with or without your little contribution.

Give me a break my Frenchman, give me a break and never mention the US together with France when it comes to military victories or defeat. This is a great insult to the Americans.

[Atlantic Friend]

"The Germans and French will have to attempt an invasion to make us cough up for their stupidity. I don't think they have sufficient testicular fortitude to even contemplate it."

Ah, Ivan, I see. Historically speaking, this aforesaid testicular fortitude has been demonstrated by the Normans/Franks in 1066.

[Atlantic Friend]

"That would be a large part of why the best equipped Army in the world gave up with a token fight when it was invaded...and why most of the country never even had to be invaded."

The "token fight" ended up with 200,000 French soldiers killed in action, and 100,000 civilians killed in the aftermath. Funny how when it comes to respecting those who fall against Nazism (and at a time when, may I add, actually fighting Nazism was a burden which fell under strictly European shoulders), some people think they can spit on those graves...

[Atlantic Friend]

"True or not: Most europeans get their news from state-run media. In particular, I'm thinking of the dutch & french."

Untrue : out of 50 channels I have hooked up, two are state-run. And I'm pretty much the average guy.

[Atlantic Friend]

"There never has been, and never will be a "United Europe". I am British, not European. I have nothing in common with the French and Germans. I don't think like they do, I don't believe the same things, I'm thoroughly uninterested in importing their values or signing up to their blueprint."

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.