IRELAND has avoided becoming a net contributor to the European Union until 2011 or 2012, the taoiseach said yesterday after 18 hours of talks on the EU budget. Claiming this as a victory, Bertie Ahern said: “Overall the deal reached was good for us. All our vital interests were protected.”

Under the new deal, the EU’s overall budget between 2007-2013 has risen to €862 billion, securing a €14 billion net transfer to the Irish economy over the seven-year period.

The Irish delegation also succeeded in restoring €500m that had previously been cut in rural development spending. Ahern says that farmers can be reassured that farm subsidies will not be altered before 2014.

The taoiseach praised the British prime minister’s ability to secure a deal in what had been an intensive period of fraught negotiations. “He had the political courage to do it and to his credit he has moved and he did it with a heart and a half,” he said.

But not everybody was so diplomatic. As Tony Blair returned to Britain the French were already revelling in what they saw as a victory for their farmers.

Blair had agreed to give up £1 billion (€1.48 billion) a year of Britain’s rebate for seven years with only a muted promise of the reform of agricultural subsidies he had sought.

Philippe Douste-Blazy, the French foreign minister, indicated that his president, Jacques Chirac, had got what he wanted: no reform of the EU’s £30 billion farm hand-outs for at least eight years. “We won’t touch this budget before December 31, 2013,” said Douste-Blazy. “That was one of the objectives of France.”

In words likely to provide fuel for the prime minister’s critics in Britain he went on to praise Blair for preferring to “wage a domestic battle at the home for the idea of the European Union rather than calmly doing his job simply as a British prime minister”.

It also emerged a final deal had been done only after the British proposal was modified under French pressure to remove mention of possible “adjustments” of the 2007- 2013 budget after the review.

Commentators elsewhere in Europe were in little doubt that Blair had been outsmarted by Chirac, who raised eyebrows at the summit by claiming the prime minister had showed courage in the face of domestic pressures.

Alan Posener, chief leader-writer for Germany’s influential Welt am Sonntag newspaper, said the prime minister had gone away virtually empty-handed after being outmanoeuvred by the French president.

“Chirac’s praise for Blair is the kiss of death because Blair couldn’t get anything he wanted,” said Posener. “He was so desperate for a deal that he was willing to settle for a vague promise that France would some day review its farm subsidies. That is worthless. It is a black day for Europe and a black day for Tony Blair because France was unwilling to move.”

Blair repeatedly insisted in the run-up to the summit that Britain would stand firm. Last month at a conference organised by the Confederation of British Industry, he reiterated he would give up Britain’s budget rebate “only” if France agreed to “a commensurate and equal giving up” of its farm subsidies. But it was clear from the start of talks on Thursday that Blair, chairing the meeting, would have to give ground or walk away empty-handed with no budget deal and face accusations that Britain’s six-month EU presidency had ended in failure.

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