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The meeting of the talking heads of EU states is scheduled in Brussels for June 16/17 - next week - with Mars in Aries. It will get hot. Here a preview of what is actually going to be discussed, now that EU has to scale down dramatically...
Leaders step up pressure on £3bn rebate
From Rory Watson in Luxembourg
BRITAIN’S European Union partners stepped up their pressure on Tony Blair last night as he prepares to defend the country’s multimillion-pound budget rebate at next week’s Brussels summit.
Other EU leaders are hoping to put the damaging political setbacks of the draft European constitution’s rejection by the French and Dutch electorate behind them by forcing a showdown with Mr Blair over a seven-year spending plan for the EU worth more than €800 billion (£540 billion).
Jean-Claude Juncker, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, said that he would press for a deal at the summit and he sent EU finance ministers home yesterday urging them to convince their premiers of the importance of reaching a long-term budget settlement. “In the eurogroup, we all had the feeling that after the major difficulties that Europe has had in the last few weeks, it would be advisable to reach an agreement on the financial perspectives (the seven-year budget) at the council next week,” he said, referring to Monday night’s meeting of ministers from the 12 single-currency countries.
The key to any deal for EU expenditure between 2006 and 2013 will be the future of Britain’s annual rebate, worth £3 billion. The Government has said it will defend the financial arrangement secured by Margaret Thatcher in 1984. Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, refused to discuss the budget battle, except to say: “We would be prepared to use the veto if necessary to protect the rebate.”
And here, also in context, De Villepin announces today his program:
June 08, 2005
French prepare themselves to resist all advances from perfidious Albion
From Charles Bremner in Paris
ANYTHING but the British might be the motto for Dominique de Villepin, the new French Prime Minister, when he announces today how he will fulfil his pledge to bring down France’s chronic high unemployment without recourse to the dreaded modèle Anglo-Saxon.
L’Albion Perfide has loomed large over France this week as M de Villepin has staked his name on his plan to restore confidence in 100 days, after the rejection of the European constitutional treaty in the referendum on May 29.
President Chirac’s appointed Prime Minister has promised to pull off what employers and foreign experts regard as the impossible: creating jobs but keeping the protective French social model that helps to generate the country’s chronic 10 per cent unemployment.
With characteristic bravado, the poet-Prime Minister has promised to try something new. Above all, he says, this will not be modelled on Britain, whose prosperity is depicted in France as the product of poverty-line wages, social injustice and medieval public services. Instead, M de Villepin wants to copy the Danish model, which has become the Paris fashion this early summer.
"This is a system, called “flexicurity”, in which the workers accept very flexible hire-and-fire rules in return for extensive welfare benefits. It also requires a tax rate even higher than that in France. M de Villepin, a diplomat who has never held elected office, has run into a predictable hurdle before he unveils his scheme to Parliament. Trade union leaders told him on Monday that they would call strikes if he even hinted at touching the sacred French labour laws. A poll by Libération yesterday showed that 63 per cent of the French did not believe that M de Villepin could bring down unemployment.
Seen from Paris, Britain appears to be attacking on all fronts. “After the celebrations of the entente cordiale, the time of frank mesentente has returned,” le Figaro said, reflecting the view that, by voting “no”, France and the Netherlands had handed Europe over to Tony Blair and his model."
Also London and Paris compete for earth changing 2012 Olympics.
So that is the scoop from Europe in Summer: Who wants to pay for EU?
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