Comments on: Shame

By: Bob B

Bob B — Tue, 21 Jun 2005 03:44:21 +0000

Seems like this is timely opportunity for a fundamental rethink on the EU budget and how it is financed but that has been brushed aside to engage in the game of blaming the UK so we’ll all forget about the 46% of the EU budget being spent on agriculture and rural development, the flagging major economies of the Eurozone and why the French and Dutch voted down the EU Constitution (bless them).

By: ECB Brit

ECB Brit — Tue, 21 Jun 2005 03:35:09 +0000

Which is why Germany and in particular the Netherlands were so insistent on capping or lowering their respective payments.
And at the same time the UK was just supposed to hand-out money in order to be a “good European”!! It’s always been about national interest.

By: ECB Brit

ECB Brit — Tue, 21 Jun 2005 03:34:55 +0000

By: Dutch

Dutch — Tue, 21 Jun 2005 02:55:51 +0000

There’s a bit of UK lunacy on this front. Both the Dutch and the Germans pay about twice as much per head to the EU as the UK. Yet when confronted with this, the argument get’s stuck on either France, the CAP or the unwillingness to re-evaluate the privilege of the UK rebate.

By: Bob B

Bob B — Mon, 20 Jun 2005 20:51:56 +0000

I suspect few among European electroates are interested in the fine print by now. With all the political capital and hype invested first in selling (premature) monetary union and then the EU Constitution treaty, European political leaders have a mounting credibility problem among home electorates for reasons it is not difficult to discern from the flagging performance of the major Eurozone economies and the evident reluctance of European electorates to endorse the Constitution. Poor ol’ Henry Kissinger, there’s still no single telephone line to Europe: diversity continues to prevail.

In the British context, Blair is regarded as a Euro-enthusiast. The Eurosceptics here are being very polite about the recent shambles in Brussels but they are looking rather smug and ‘told you so’ now.

By: rjw

rjw — Mon, 20 Jun 2005 20:45:18 +0000

I agree that those things have shifted Edward. The problem is, do we re-open every deal when circumstances change? Particularly when it is political “capital” that has shifted around?

What if they had reached a deal this weekend. Then two years down the road, with different faces in Berlin and Paris (and Rome), suppose a demand was made to unravel the deal? It’s a dangerous game.

Of course - the other side of the coin is that Blair is right on the substance. Although the CAP is going through major reforms, it makes no sense to have a budget skewed as it is.

And perhaps this question is so important that the opening of a done deal should have been considered small beer. But it was never realistic to expect the French to agree.

The British must have known this. Which is why I’m curious as to what they “really” wanted at the summit.

In my view the Brits should have put this issue (CAP vs rebate) squarely on the table two years back when that CAP deal was brokered. By not doing so they missed a trick.

But I’m sure that at the time their priority was to ensure that enlargement happened, so they did not want to complicate the affair too much and risk upsetting the apple cart. So the British bought the CAP deal, despite protests.

Abiole’s comment above, incidentally, seems quite wrong to me. I don’t recall any agreement in 2002 for the british rebate post 2006. If Abiole can point me to a text backing up that position, I’d be astonished.

By: Edward

Edward — Mon, 20 Jun 2005 20:09:02 +0000

“On the other hand, Blair did sign up to the ring fencing of the CAP in 2002,”

But that was then, and this is now. Back in 2002 Blair was in fact much more on the defensive for other obvious reasons. My guess is that what is happening now is pretty calculated. Chirac is weakened by the referendum, Merkel is probably coming, and so now is possibly as good a moment as he’ll get. He can always accommodate when he has taken the high ground, which I think he is doing. The suggestions seem to be that the UK will try to act first to recover lost ground with the new members.

But as you say, interesting dispute.

By: Abiola Lapite

Abiola Lapite — Mon, 20 Jun 2005 17:59:04 +0000

“On the other hand, Blair did sign up to the ring fencing of the CAP in 2002, and is now saying that deal must be re-opened, which he must have realised was never going to fly in this type of negotiation.”
On the other hand, the other Europeans did sign up to the British rebate in 2002, and are now saying that the deal must be re-opened, which they must have realised was never going to fly in this type of negotiation.

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If Chirac and Schr?der didn’t want their little fait accompli to be unraveled, they ought to have refrained from their attempt to pick the pockets of British taxpayers to subsidize French farmers even more than they already do. It’s an absurdity to expect the British government to treat the rebate as up for grabs while the incredibly wasteful and illogical agricultural subsidies are kept off limits from discussion.

By: rjw

rjw — Mon, 20 Jun 2005 17:51:13 +0000

It’s an interesting dispute.

It is clear that chirac is playing the blame game and trying to deflect flak towards Blair. It’s also clear that Blair is right on the substance - the imbalance in the structure of the budget is ludicrous. The fact that Chirac won’t accept this point even in principle confirms his status as one of the last big political dinosaurs.

On the other hand, Blair did sign up to the ring fencing of the CAP in 2002, and is now saying that deal must be re-opened, which he must have realised was never going to fly in this type of negotiation. The British needed to have put this argument on the table 2 years ago - not two weeks before the summit.

So I’m left asking - what would the British have accepted? Would they have bought a deal freezing the rebate , with a committment to re-examine the CAP together with the rebate for the next financial period (2013 onwards)? Was that on the table or not? Would the French have accepted that?

The press reports are not too clear on the nuances.

By: Bob B

Bob B — Mon, 20 Jun 2005 15:10:00 +0000

Part of the hiatus over the EU budget summit, it seems to me, is because Chirac and Schroeder have played much the same sort of tactics Blair himself plays in domestic politics in Britain and which were deployed at full strength to boost support for the Iraq war at home and in Europe generally. In the end, the effect is to discredit politicians who resort to these ways.