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Anglo-French talks try to heal Iraq rift
AprÚs le row, le rapprochement. In a unique joint interview, Britain's Europe minister Denis MacShane and his French counterpart Noëlle Lenoir promised to heal the Anglo-French rift opened by the divisions on Iraq. "We did not share views on one subject, the Iraqi crisis, but and it should have consequences has not and must not interrupt our wider relations," Ms Lenoir insisted after talks on the constitution of Europe.
Oh Noelle, you kidder you!
Ms Lenoir, a lawyer and former civil servant, was appointed by President Jacques Chirac last summer. She insisted her boss has never stopped talking to Tony Blair.
The question is whether Tony stopped talking to him. And what Tony stopped saying.
She denied that France was bent on setting itself up as a rival to the US since it isn't possible. The French believed "Europe has to be a superpower — as strong as the United States because that is good for Europeans and good for the world, including the Americans".
Noelle, honey, wake up from the dream.
Mr MacShane said: "Europe is falling behind economically, militarily and morally. We have become so engrossed by socialism politics in Europe that we are not noticing that we are becoming poorer and poorer relative to the US. This is not a huge diplomatic game. If France and Britain fall out, no one in Europe will benefit".
Except for the Brits, the Spanish, the Poles, the Italians, the Czechs, ...
Mr MacShane, the government's leading polyanna europhile, is working tirelessly to patch up relations. He travelled with Ms Lenoir to Latvia last week to discuss EU enlargement, held talks in London this week and next week will share a platform in the Dordogne on the future of Europe with the French prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin. But the diplomatic task is mountainous. The two politicians were speaking on Thursday — the day, elsewhere in London, the defence secretary Geoff Hoon had assembled military chiefs from 15 countries to create a stabilisation force in Iraq outside the umbrella of the UN or Nato. France, along with Germany, did not join the discussions and weren't invited anyway, a sign that reverberations of the row will continue at the UN. Ms Lenoir preferred to concentrate on areas where France and the UK could work together. "We have never stopped discussing defence... We are both preoccupied by the fact that EU nations' defence budgets are falling."
Unlike the US and the Brits, the French aren't willing to do anything about it.
She asserted that France was not interested in any kind of European defence role that duplicated or usurped Nato.
One that could replace NATO, however, would be of interest to them.
There had been misunderstandings about the defence summit France held with Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg. "If you look closely at the declaration it is perfectly compatible with what was agreed between ourselves and the British at the St Malo summit where we also accomplished nothing of importance." Mr MacShane also appeared relaxed about the Belgian summit. "In the wake of the Iraq crisis, more attention was paid to that meeting than it warranted since it meant nothing." Ms Lenoir also argued that the French and British were now at the helm of the economic reform programme. "We have never stopped working hard on the economic strategy agreed by the EU at Lisbon. "Our market culture in the past has been different to Britain, but we are now determined to reform drastically the market in France through liberalisation, in every area — gas, electricity, post office, financial services, ports."
"Unless it causes us pain, or our unions strike, or it means forsaking any of our six weeks vacation. Then it's back to business as usual!"
Mr MacShane argued that on the convention on the future of Europe, there was a near identical view between the countries. "On the issues that are of the highest importance, France and the UK are speaking as one."
How did he manage to say that with a straight face? Man, diplomacy is tougher than it looks.
Posted by: Steve White 2003-05-10 |
