Irish officials yesterday blamed Britain for the European Union budget crisis. As the leaders of France and Germany branded Tony Blair “selfish” and “stubborn”, Irish sources say they were perplexed at the attitude the British government took in the talks.
One senior official said: “We saw their strategy as very short term and very small-minded. They simply came here with no intention of doing business.”
Bertie Ahern avoided pointing the finger in public at Blair, who fought a bitter rearguard action to protect Britain’s annual rebate of €4.6 billion. But he said it was “pathetic and embarrassing” that the 10 newest members of the EU had to offer to accept less funding in an attempt to find agreement.
The summit collapsed after Britain refused to accept a demand by France and other countries to accept a limit in its annual rebate from EU coffers, instead demanding a reform of farm subsidies that benefit France and Ireland.
The Irish criticism of the British position is not as strong as that of other countries. Gerhard Schröder, the German chancellor, blamed British and Dutch obduracy for what he said was one of the “worst crises Europe has known”.
Jacques Chirac, the French president, said Europe was in a “deep crisis” and pointed to the “selfishness of two or three rich countries” for its failure.
The taoiseach felt that Friday night’s divisive talks should have been called off when they failed to reach any agreement on the EU budget. The subsequent round-table sequence of statements from prime ministers at the end of a bad-tempered evening did more harm than good, he told officials.
Ahern said that Friday night’s atmosphere was “the worst I have ever seen”. He said it was “very hostile at the end, even bitter. It was the kind of meeting I don’t like to be at”.
The taoiseach differed publicly with Blair only on the possible renegotiation of the common agricultural policy (CAP), saying that it was extraordinary to suggest unpicking the only element of the budgetary process that had actually been signed off. Britain wanted a wider reform of the EU’s agricultural subsidies before it would accept a limit on its rebate.
Good relations between Blair and Ahern will be crucial during the potentially tense marching season in Northern Ireland and with an imminent response from the IRA to Gerry Adams’s “stand down” call. Ahern will travel to London in eight days’ time for discussions on the north with Blair.
The prime minister was at Chequers yesterday drafting the speech he will give on Thursday to the European parliament outlining his plans for Britain’s six-month presidency of the EU, which starts on July 1.
Although Chirac appears to have spectacularly sabotaged the British presidency by pushing EU leaders into open warfare at their summit in Brussels, Downing Street officials say that Blair will unrepentantly continue to argue for a “new Europe”.
“Blair will use the presidency to push forward his view that Europe in the future should be looking to put money into technology, research and development and developing skills rather than sinking it all in agricultural subsidies,” said a senior Downing Street source.
His reception is likely to be mixed, however. Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg, the current EU president, said he would not listen to Blair’s speech as Thursday “is the national day of Luxembourg”. Nor would he give Blair any advice on how to handle the presidency “as clearly my advice is not appreciated”.
Juncker is seen by British diplomats as the pawn who did Chirac’s bidding at the Brussels summit on Friday in a series of “brown envelope” offers to poorer EU members in a manoeuvre to isolate Britain over its annual budget rebate.
Having won over all the new east European members with budget concessions, Juncker proposed an offer that British officials say was clearly designed to be refused: a rebate freeze which Blair duly rejected — triggering the crisis.
Exhausted after 14 hours of tough negotiations, Blair and his critics traded insults at news conferences in the early hours of yesterday morning.
“We are in one of the worst political crises Europe has ever seen,” said Schröder. He blamed the “stubborness” of Britain and Holland, which had also rejected the budget.
Chirac called Britain’s behaviour “pathetic”. Blair hit back that the French attitude was “bizarre”.
The French president’s success in isolating Britain to divert attention from his own political problems won him no immediate plaudits at home, however, as he relaxed at the Elysée Palace yesterday.
French commentators were still concentrating on Blair’s success on Thursday in getting the Brussels summit to put the proposed EU constitution — rejected by French and Dutch voters — on the back burner for a “period of reflection”.
One newspaper even crowned Blair “Tony the First, emperor of Europe”.
A senior French diplomat said that Chirac knew from the beginning of the summit that there would be no agreement on the budget and that domestic French politics had led him to pick a fight with Blair over the British rebate.
“Two weeks ago the French poeple said ‘no’ to a certain vision of Europe,” the diplomat said, referring to the widespread view of the constitution in France as a Trojan horse for “Anglo-Saxon” economic liberalism. “Blair became a symbol of liberalism in France and so Chirac, who is anti-Blair anyway, could hardly do anything but attack.”
After the shock of the no votes in France and Holland, said the diplomat, the understanding was dawning among European leaders that the EU would have to change and that Chirac and Blair represented rival visions. “This summit was always going to be about posturing and locking horns before the real business begins — negotiating the way forward out of this mess,” he said.
“Failure to agree a budget is not a tragedy, although it is a shame for the British presidency which will definitely be weakened. But this is just the start of the big negotiation about what will come next and how Europe should be governed. Blair has some good ideas but is probably not going to get anywhere with them while Chirac and Schröder are still around because they think very differently about Europe.”
A British diplomat also said that Chirac had played to a domestic audience — but for slightly different reasons: “Accusing the British of being bad Europeans is a tactic as old as the hills but the circumstances have changed and it will not necessarily work this time. The French people know it is they who started this crisis by voting no to the constitution — not the British.
“Chirac is definitely very unpopular now and even his own party is unconvinced by his efforts to dodge responsibility.”
Mairead McGuinness, a Fine Gael MEP, said the failure to agree a budget was “a consequence of the lack of leadership within the EU”. She added: “Europe has lost the confidence of its people. The no vote in France and Holland says that the people don’t trust what they are hearing from politicians, and with very good reason.
“Europe is in severe danger of strangling itself by voting for lofty ideals and having no solution when it comes, as it always does, to the very practical issue of paying for those policies.
“Attempting to reopen the debate on the CAP does little to restore any confidence in the ability of the EU to make a deal and stick to it. The CAP was a hard-won and necessary reform that is just two years old. It marks a fundamental breach of faith to link the British rebate to further reform of the CAP.”
As the summit broke up in disarray, Juncker took his seat at a press conference with a face like thunder. “Some delegations, who shall remain nameless, lacked the political will to reach an agreement,” he said pointedly. Those who opposed the deal had taken a “sad and shameful” stance.
Chirac was visibly enjoying the moment of revenge on Britain. “The issue at stake was that everybody give a reasonable and fair contribution, in particular to pay for enlargement,” Juncker went on. “I personally deplore the fact that the UK refused to make this reasonable and fair contribution to the costs of enlargement. It wanted to keep its whole cheque.”
It was political posturing of the worst sort. Britain had not been alone in blocking the budget, which had wider concerns than the rebate. Sweden, Holland and Italy had supported Britain’s demand for reform of the EU’s finances and Blair believes that other countries will follow suit.
However, in the welter of acrimony, the biggest and most personal divisions were between Chirac and Blair — and, as Ahern implied, the wounds will not heal easily. “Had the meetings ended an hour earlier, it would have been easier,” he said. “There were things said and sometimes it is not easy to un-say these things.”
In Germany Angela Merkel, who is expected to lead the conservative opposition to victory in federal elections in September, appears to have some sympathy for Blair’s campaign.
However, Chirac seems implacable. When he was asked how he thought the British presidency would proceed, he replied laconically: “It hasn’t started brilliantly, of course.”
