The EU faced further crisis last night as Tony Blair formally blocked a deal that would have substantially cut Britain's £3.2 billion annual budget rebate. Senior British officials suspected that a trap had been set for the Prime Minister that would have preserved France's farm subsidies until 2013 while offering no prospect of fundamental reform of EU finances until then.
Having kicked the problem of the constitution into the long grass, the summit was trying to settle a new seven-year budget from 2007 to 2013. Mr Blair said he would give ground on the rebate but only in return for changes to the bloated farm subsidy regime. The British No followed a day of manoeuvring during which states led by France had tried to corner Mr Blair into accepting annual cuts to the rebate or force him to wield a veto.
Britain strove to avoid accusations that it had wrecked what was already a crisis summit. The Prime Minister's official spokesman said the summit chairman, Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg, had handed Mr Blair a revised offer in a private meeting but that it failed to establish the clear link Britain demanded between reforming the rebate and farm aid. He said the Government believed that other nations, including Spain, Italy and Holland, had serious reservations about the compromise. In addition, the spokesman said that Britain had been offered a unique payment mechanism on top of the existing budget and rebate system. "There was a request for additional money from the United Kingdom that is unacceptable to us," he said. The spokesman said the language in the Luxembourg compromise was "worryingly ambiguous" and put French interests above British ones. In a clear reference to President Jacques Chirac, of France, who had led resistance to the reopening of a 2002 agreement on farm subsidies, he said the wording could have been used to block any change.
Late last night Mr Juncker was tabling new proposals to try to bridge the divide. But British officials said the gulf was too wide.
It's another beautiful day here in EUtopia. |