EU spat highlights Blair-Brown rift
Monday, June 25, 2007
A REPORTED furious row between Tony Blair and his successor Gordon Brown over a new European Union treaty at the weekend highlighted long-simmering tensions between the pair, even as Brown prepares to take power.
It also underlines the sensitive issue of Europe for Brown, who is widely seen as cooler than Blair on the EU and immediately faced calls to put the new EU pact to a referendum in notoriously euro-sceptic Britain.
The relationship between the two men, who began as allies in transforming Britain's Labour Party in the 1990s, has reputedly descended into poisonous backbiting and apparently the tensions continue to the last.
In the latest spat Brown, who will become prime minister on Wednesday, was said to have telephoned Blair repeatedly during this week's EU summit in Brussels which marked the outgoing premier's international swan song.
The row was sparked after Blair accepted a French demand to drop a reference to "free and undistorted competition" as an aim of the EU in the new treaty, which was finally agreed early Saturday after a marathon summit.
For French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the demand was seen as a sop to critics at home who had rejected the EU constitution in a 2005 referendum on the basis that it was too economically liberal and amounted to an "Anglo-Saxon" stitch-up.
Blair, who has championed free market reform in Europe over his decade in power, initially accepted the symbolic demand, arguing that in any case it would not change the legal basis of the 27-member bloc's internal market.
But Brown, seen as even more aggressive than Blair in fighting protectionism of the sort long embodied for London by former French president Jacques Chirac, was having none of it, and went "ballistic" according to the Daily Telegraph.
In a series of at least three phone calls between London and Brussels on Friday, Brown demanded that Blair go back to Sarkozy and insist that a commitment to the EU's internal market be enshrined in a protocol appended to the new treaty.
Eventually an accord was brokered, paving the way for an agreement which also saw Blair win satisfaction on four "red line" conditions on key policy areas where Britain wants to retain national control.
But few doubt that the two men are not parting as friends.
The origins of their falling-out are widely reputed to date from a 1994 dinner at a north London restaurant, where Blair is said to have pledged to hand over power after a term as prime minister following a 1997 landslide election.
But Blair went on to win a record three elections, and pledged to serve a full third term after the last polls in 2005.
That plan was scuppered last year when a coup allegedly orchestrated by Brown forced Blair to agree to leave half way through his mandate, allowing the dour Scottish finance minister finally to claim the top job.
Blair will step down on Wednesday. Brown will then get the keys to 10 Downing Street. vowing to a "different kind of politics", less "celebrity" driven, and seeking to distance himself from the "mistakes" over the 2003 Iraq war.
AFP
It also underlines the sensitive issue of Europe for Brown, who is widely seen as cooler than Blair on the EU and immediately faced calls to put the new EU pact to a referendum in notoriously euro-sceptic Britain.
The relationship between the two men, who began as allies in transforming Britain's Labour Party in the 1990s, has reputedly descended into poisonous backbiting and apparently the tensions continue to the last.
In the latest spat Brown, who will become prime minister on Wednesday, was said to have telephoned Blair repeatedly during this week's EU summit in Brussels which marked the outgoing premier's international swan song.
The row was sparked after Blair accepted a French demand to drop a reference to "free and undistorted competition" as an aim of the EU in the new treaty, which was finally agreed early Saturday after a marathon summit.
For French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the demand was seen as a sop to critics at home who had rejected the EU constitution in a 2005 referendum on the basis that it was too economically liberal and amounted to an "Anglo-Saxon" stitch-up.
Blair, who has championed free market reform in Europe over his decade in power, initially accepted the symbolic demand, arguing that in any case it would not change the legal basis of the 27-member bloc's internal market.
But Brown, seen as even more aggressive than Blair in fighting protectionism of the sort long embodied for London by former French president Jacques Chirac, was having none of it, and went "ballistic" according to the Daily Telegraph.
In a series of at least three phone calls between London and Brussels on Friday, Brown demanded that Blair go back to Sarkozy and insist that a commitment to the EU's internal market be enshrined in a protocol appended to the new treaty.
Eventually an accord was brokered, paving the way for an agreement which also saw Blair win satisfaction on four "red line" conditions on key policy areas where Britain wants to retain national control.
But few doubt that the two men are not parting as friends.
The origins of their falling-out are widely reputed to date from a 1994 dinner at a north London restaurant, where Blair is said to have pledged to hand over power after a term as prime minister following a 1997 landslide election.
But Blair went on to win a record three elections, and pledged to serve a full third term after the last polls in 2005.
That plan was scuppered last year when a coup allegedly orchestrated by Brown forced Blair to agree to leave half way through his mandate, allowing the dour Scottish finance minister finally to claim the top job.
Blair will step down on Wednesday. Brown will then get the keys to 10 Downing Street. vowing to a "different kind of politics", less "celebrity" driven, and seeking to distance himself from the "mistakes" over the 2003 Iraq war.
AFP
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