TONY THE TORY, PART XVI:

Britain attacks France over EU subsidies (David Charter and Rory Watson, October 26, 2002 , Times of London)

TONY BLAIR launched a ferocious attack on French President Jacques Chirac yesterday for jeopardising the successful enlargement of the European Union to 25 members by putting the narrow self-interest of French farmers first.

The Prime Minister's personal attack overshadowed an historic agreement by the European Union to pave the way for the entry of eight former Communist countries in 2004, and marked a further cooling in Britain's strained relationship with France.

Mr Blair left Brussels in a fury with M Chirac as the latest EU summit agreed a multi-billion pound package to cover the costs of the first three years of an expanded Union.

The Prime Minister, so often at the centre of EU decisions, found himself at the margins as President Chirac sought to reassert his authority on the European stage.

The foundations of yesterday's deal had been laid the previous day when the French President and Gerhard Schröder, the German Chancellor, caught Mr Blair and fellow EU leaders by complete surprise with a joint proposal to freeze farm subsidies.

The one stumbling block to Tony Blair becoming the Tory leader when his own party chucks him has been his unfortunate belief in the EU. But luckily he's just gotten a brutal glimpse of Britain's future in a Franco-Prussian dominated Europe. The question for Mr. Blair and Britain generally is pretty basic: having defeated Napoleon, the Kaiser, and Hitler at the cost of hundreds of thousands of British lives, is Britain now content to be France and Germany's jailhouse bitch?
Posted by Orrin Judd at October 26, 2002 7:14 AM