The UK’s controversial annual €4.6 billion EU rebate “has to go”, British leader Tony Blair stressed yesterday.
Britain has linked increased contributions to Brussels budgets to reform of agriculture subsidies.
But Blair has given the clearest signal yet that London is prepared to move on the rebate issue.
“The rebate is an anomaly that has to go, but it has to go in the context of the other anomaly being changed as well,” he said on Tuesday.
Blair announced that budget talks under the UK’s EU’s six month rotating presidency should resume next month.
Britain's call for reform to EU farm subsidies are boosted by an OECD report finding that Europe tops a global league table with an annual €110 billion in payouts.
The figure amounts to almost half the world's total farm subsidies of €230bn, a major obstacle to WTO attempts to open markets to developing countries.
But Paris is refsuing to budge on the French position that the EU's Common Agriculture Policy should remain intact.
The French prime minister told his country’s national parliament that France will not allow any changes to EU agricultural subsidies.
And Dominique de Villepin called the British rebate “an expenditure from the old regime”.
Former French foreign minister Michel Barnier suggests the European project is in serious risk of disintegration due to the differences between the UK and French visions of Europe.
Many German newspapers report that Gerhard Schroeder is on a collision course with Blair.
The German leader has warned against destroying Europe’s social model out of “national egoism” or “populist reasons”.
He has also defended a politically integrated Europe, associated with France and Germany, rather than an EU free trade zone, a vision associated with the UK.
In an interview with Germany's mass-selling daily Bild Zeitung, Blair insisted his vision of the EU is much more than a free trade zone.
The Hague’s foreign minister Bernard Bot has complained about German accusations of Dutch “egoism” following the Netherlands tough stance during last week’s failed budget negotiations.
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