Chirac, Blair clash looms

2005-06-13 08:16

Paris - French President Jacques Chirac is preparing to meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Tuesday, just two days before an EU summit at which the two are expected to clash fiercely over the EU budget, and more generally over the future direction of the European Union.

The face-to-face between the two leaders will come at the lowest point in Franco-British relations since their opposed stances on the US-led war on Iraq, and amid a sense of crisis sparked by French and Dutch voters' rejection of a now-sinking EU constitution.

Last week, Chirac led a charge of EU states calling on "our British friends" to give up the €5bn yearly rebate it gets from the EU budget under a deal bullied out by Margaret Thatcher in 1984 as a "gesture" of European solidarity.

Blair has bluntly said he would yield no ground on the issue and called for a fundamental overhaul of the way the €900bn annual EU budget is worked out.

He particularly wants a revision of the agricultural subsidies that make up 40% of the budget's outlay - and from which French farmers benefit greatly.

At the same time, British politicians and media have portrayed Chirac's demand as a bid to deflect attention from the French president's failure to win a 'yes' vote in the May referendum on the EU constitution.

"These are Chirac's dying days and he is fighting like a cornered, wounded animal with its tail on fire," the mass circulation Sun tabloid newspaper said.

But France has brought Germany in to second its efforts, and on Sunday France's Europe minister, Catherine Colonna, said after a meeting of EU foreign ministers: "Almost all member states are in favour of calling into question the British cheque. France wants it to decrease, then to end under a timetable."

Blair, who was in Moscow on Monday on the first leg of a European tour, has stuck by his guns.

"To change the rebate, you have to address the underlying problem, which is the effect of the Common Agricultural Policy," a spokesperson accompanying him said.

Decision could be pushed back

The issue is to be thrashed out at the two-day summit starting on Thursday.

Although the summit is meant to plan the newly expanded bloc's budget for 2007-2013, a veto from Britain - which takes over the rotating six-month EU presidency from July - could push back a decision to next year.

The fate of the EU constitution was also expected to be raised at the summit.

The "no" vote by France, one of the EU's founding states and its second-biggest economy, made adoption of the charter improbable. A subsequent "no" vote in a Dutch referendum and Blair's decision last week to suspend a British referendum on the issue would appear to nail it into a coffin.

Nevertheless, Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, meeting in Paris last Friday, jointly called for the ratification process to continue and underlined their commitment to maintain the French-German axis that drives EU affairs.

- AFP