Tony Blair has given up on Europe as an issue worth fighting for, senior allies of the Prime Minister have told The Sunday Telegraph.
A leading Blairite cabinet minister made the admission last night as the European Union descended into deeper turmoil, with doubts surfacing over the future of the single currency.
Mr Blair, who will seek to shift the focus of his administration on to poverty in the Third World this week during talks with President Bush, has told his closest allies: "Africa is worth fighting for. Europe, in its present form, is not."
Blair's defection is of particular significance because next month he takes over the EU presidency.
Westminster sources said Blair, who takes over the EU presidency next month, is determined to bury the constitution, despite insistence by France and Germany to continue the ratification process.
“The constitution is dead,” one source said.
Blair will pay a price for his defection, though. Schroeder and Chirac are livid.
Fearing that Britain will use its presidency to wreck the constitution, France issued a warning last night: “When Britain assumes the presidency it will take on the grave responsibility of making sure that it drives the spirit of integration forward,” said Chirac’s spokesman, Jérôme Bonnafont.
Blair’s determination to bury the constitution is matched by Schröder’s determination to save it. Schröder’s spokesman insisted Berlin wanted to press ahead with ratification.
“The chancellor and the president agreed that the constitutional process must continue,” Anda said. “We cannot leave Europe in the lurch.”
They will exact their pound of flesh at next week's meeting of EU finance ministers.
TONY BLAIR is facing a Franco-German ambush this week over Britain’s £3 billion annual European Union budget rebate after signalling his determination to kill off the European constitution.
At a meeting in Berlin last night, Gerhard Schröder, the German chancellor, and French President Jacques Chirac were insistent Britain should give up the deal won by Margaret Thatcher two decades ago.
Asked about Britain’s rebate, Bela Anda, Schröder’s official spokesman, said: “Without calling any country by name, the chancellor made it clear that everyone must be prepared to shift their position in order to get a deal.”
German government sources said both countries were demanding the change as a pre-condition for agreeing a deal on the EU’s budget for 2007-13. Although Germany, the EU’s largest paymaster, has indicated its readiness to pay more
into the Brussels coffers, it is demanding Britain give up what it sees as its “special treatment”.
Other EU members are certain to side with France and Germany when the issue is discussed at a meeting of finance ministers on Tuesday ahead of the June 16-17 EU summit.
So here's the deal. The EU had bribed Britain into compliance in the hope that eventually the Brits could be brought fully into the union. Now that Blair has refused to stay bought, they want the bribe money back and are willing to sink the EU budget to get it.
Madness..., madness!
Read about it here and here.
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