BRITAIN’S BOLTON

Crikey! FO speaks truth about Europe (David Cracknell, The Times, December 12th, 2005)

A senior British ambassador has lambasted our European Union partners in undiplomatic language, blaming them for farm subsidies that “bloat” rich French landowners, “pump up food prices” and create poverty in Africa.

In an e-mail to colleagues seen by The Sunday Times, Charles Crawford, the ambassador to Poland, mocks “mon ami” Jacques Chirac and the Poles for selfishly blocking Tony Blair’s attempts to secure a face-saving deal on the European budget.

His sardonic tone will embarrass Blair as he seeks to reach agreement this week at a key summit. Some will see his exasperation as revealing what ministers privately think.

Crawford says that Britain has created more jobs for Poles in Britain than the Polish government since EU membership was extended to another 10 countries last year. He visualises Blair or Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, telling the new member states that the UK wants to help them, despite their “rudeness and ingratitude”. [...]

Much of it represents Crawford’s blackly humorous opinions on what Blair should tell other European ministers. He suggests putting a children’s alarm clock on the conference table and giving delegates an hour to accept Britain’s offer.

If it is not accepted, he suggested, Britain would be able to walk away with its rebate intact. It would then be able to use money that it was prepared to deduct from its rebate to fund projects directly in former eastern bloc countries.

Crawford estimates that it would be equivalent to twice as much spent through the EU and that Britain’s help would go much further, faster and more efficiently to the countries concerned. There will not be the loss of money in “all the bollocky EU bureaucracy” and “sticky transaction costs, local and Brussels corruption, overheads and other rubbish”.

Crawford describes the common agricultural policy (CAP) as “the most stupid, immoral state-subsidised policy in human history, give or take communism”.

Worth framing, that last bit.