Fiasco

GB, che ha presidenza di turno UE, ha fatto sua proposta
di bilancio 2007-2013:

• riduce la spesa da 1,06% PIL proposto a giugno da
  Junker a 1,03%, con riduzione di 24 MD euro nel periodo, di cui 14 MD a carico
  dei 10 nuovi paesi membri, 7 tolti da fondi sviluppo rurale e solo 2 MD da
  bilancio agricolo (PAC).
• GB rinuncerebbe a circa 8 MD dello sconto britannico,
  che comunque aumenterebbe ulteriormente in seguito all’allargamento.
• Commento WSJ: proposta Blair
• non smantella la spesa agricola (40% del bilancio UE),
  diversamente da quanto aveva dichiarato di voler fare,
• colpisce i paesi dell’Est, che sono stati alleati della
  GB,
• per accontentare i fruitori francesi di sussidi
  agricoli.
• Desta stupore che Blair metta a repentaglio il rapporto
  speciale, filo-atlantico con i paesi dell’Est, e indebolisca la sua posizione
  in GB, per avere una pacca sulla spalla dagli eurocrati,
• dopo che Blair aveva ingaggiato battaglia da posizione
  di forza, denunciando il fatto che il 40% del bilancio UE viene speso per meno
  del 3% della popolazione, con il grosso che va a ricchi proprietari terrieri e
  al business agroalimentare.
• Tanto più che la Francia chiede di aumentare il taglio
  allo sconto GB (ora di 4,7 MD, che aumenterà del 40% tra il 2007 e il
  2013). 
• Il P della Commissione UE, Barroso, ha criticato
  il bilancio britannico perché prefigura una “piccola Europa”, anziché l’Europa
  forte (l’Europa potenza, nella versione francese del Figaro) di cui v’è
  bisogno.

La strategia britannica si è rivelata un boomerang
perché paesi che ricevono notevoli sussidi agricoli, come IRL e POL, si sono
opposti ai tagli all’agricoltura.

December 6, 2005

"A modern budget for Europe is not
one that 10 years from now is still spending 40% of its money on the CAP,"
British Prime Minister Tony Blair told the European Parliament in June.
Inexplicably, the British government yesterday proposed just such a budget.

Contray to his boss’s fiery promises, U.K.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw expressed his government’s readiness for an €8
billion cut of the British rebate during the EU’s 2007-2013 budget period
without getting a commitment to reform the Common Agricultural Policy in return.
The budget rebate was originally negotiated by Margaret Thatcher to compensate
London for the relatively small amount it gets from the CAP and to ensure that
British net contributions don’t spin out of control.

How did Britain endeavor to keep the
farm-subsidy junkies in France happy? By taking the rest of the needed EU
budget cuts out of the hides of Britain’s erstwhile good friends in the
"New Europe" countries out east.

London proposes to cut the overall EU
budget to 1.03% of the bloc’s GDP, down from 1.06%, small centimes until
one considers that the new EU member states will see their structural
adjustment subsidies drop by a substantial 8.5%. The East Europeans, deeply
unhappy with the deal, are in a tight spot. The British plan would be
better than no agreement at all at next week’s EU summit. Without a deal,
they might end up with even less funding.

These handouts aren’t the most productive way
of spending taxpayers’ money, but they’re a tangible symbol of European
solidarity. And helping these countries modernize with new bridges is a far
better use of EU capital than the wasteful farm subsidies. Why Mr. Blair
would undermine his special relationship with countries who share his
commitment to a strong trans-Atlantic relationship and market economics for an
old Brussels-style "compromise" is mystifying. The
eurocrats might pat him on the back for "moving Europe forward." But
Mr. Blair will have won this "victory" at a high cost to long-term
British interests as well as his own political standing at home.

While Warsaw and Prague seethe, his critics
in Britain rightly knock him for compromising Lady Thatcher’s old rebate
without gaining much in return. Meanwhile, having smelled blood and weakness, Paris
is surely going to demand further rebate cuts now that Mr. Blair himself
has basically cut the link between CAP reform and the "chèque
britannique."

Strangely, the momentum was on Mr. Blair’s
side. He took the moral high ground and challenged the justice of a farm
scheme that spends 40% of the EU budget on less than 3% of the population, with
the bulk going to affluent land-owners and agro-businesses. His arguments
even excited an initially hostile European parliament, while an ailing Jacques
Chirac, the staunchest defender of the ancien régime, has faded from the scene.
But Mr. Blair seems to have caved in to attacks that his refusal to give up the
rebate made him a "bad European."

What a lost opportunity for Europe and the
world. It was always ambitious to try to reform the CAP in a six-month
presidency, but Mr. Blair could have laid the groundwork for a future overhaul
of the CAP monster. Unfortunately, he didn’t try again after his June
speech, failing to use his bully pulpit to push the EU toward a credible offer
on farm subsidies in the Doha trade round, which has reached a crucial
stage.

In June, EU leaders failed to agree on the
EU’s spending for 2007-2013, adding to the gloom
pervading a continent reeling from French and Dutch voters’ rejection of a
proposed constitution. At that summit, Luxembourg leader Jean-Claude
Juncker, who was chairing the meeting, suggested a budget of €871 billion
($1.02 trillion), or 1.06% of the union’s gross domestic product.

Mr. Blair’s proposal reduced that to 1.03%
of GDP, or about €24 billion less for the seven years. More than half of the savings — about €14 billion — would come
from money earmarked for the EU’s less wealthy, formerly communist Eastern
European newcomers, who immediately opposed the move. About €7 billion
would be taken from rural development funds for Western Europe, and just €2
billion from the €250 billion in farm funding under the Common Agricultural
Policy, the budget’s single-biggest component. Farm payments and regional aid
account for about 80% of the EU’s annual budget.

A frequent Blair ally, EU Commission
President José Manuel Barroso, blasted the U.K. proposal as
"unacceptable" and "unrealistic," saying it was a recipe
for "a ‘Mini Europe,’ not the strong Europe that we need." He
pledged to work for a deal that is "fairer for new member states" and
warned that otherwise, plans for the EU to admit Romania and Bulgaria in 2007
would have to be scrapped. Eastern European leaders, frequent allies of
Britain, also rejected the proposal.

U.K. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw
acknowledged it was "a tough package" and insisted on a review of all
EU spending in 2009, including farm funds. To soften the blow a bit, Mr. Blair
offered that the U.K. would either make an extra annual payment to the EU
budget, or cut the U.K.’s previously sacrosanct budget rebate — negotiated by
former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher — by a total of €8 billion.

U.K. diplomats say that by hinting that he
was willing to give back some of the rebate over the summer, Mr. Blair had
believed he would break down opposition to an overhaul of farm spending
and isolate its main champion, France.

The strategy backfired, the diplomats acknowledge. Several countries that receive
significant amounts of farm spending, such as Ireland and Poland, opposed cuts
in money supporting farmers. France fought hard. At a briefing yesterday, the
French mission to the EU released a six-page position paper attacking the
rebate, arguing that the U.K. "still pays somewhat less than its ‘fair
share’ of the cost" of the expanded EU.