Blair says EU budget deal hinges on summit outcome
BERLIN, Oct 22: Britain will work to get a deal on a multi-annual European Union budget if the bloc’s leaders agree next week to modernise the EU, Prime Minister Tony Blair was quoted on Friday as saying.
Blair said the main task of EU leaders meeting near London next week as part of Britain’s EU presidency was to agree which direction to take the 25-nation bloc and if that was possible then an EU budget deal could be struck in December.
Our goal is to put Europe back on the tracks and moving in the direction of modernisation, Blair was quoted as saying in the interview with Germany’s Die Welt newspaper, posted on its Internet site ahead of publication on Saturday.
The aim of the informal meeting next week is to try to agree on the direction. The aim of the December summit would then be to give content to this agreement, to make it happen, he said.
There won’t be a deal on finances if there’s no unanimity on the political direction. And if there’s no agreement on the direction and budget then Europe won’t get back on the rails, he added.
Britain called the EU summit at Hampton Court near London on Oct. 27 to discuss the challenge posed by economic globalisation to the bloc’s social welfare systems and competitiveness.
But other EU countries have made clear they also want to talk about the bloc’s finances after Britain was instrumental in June in blocking an agreement on a budget for the 2007-13 period.
In the interview, Blair signalled some willingness to compromise, accepting shifting spending priorities away from areas like agriculture to research could only be a gradual, long-term process.
He also voiced support for a European Commission proposal for a new hardship fund for areas hit by industrial restructuring. It would be a huge step forward if we could agree on the Commission paper next week, he said.
No budget deal is likely at the Hampton Court summit because Germany, the bloc’s paymaster, will be represented by outgoing Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who has clashed with Blair over EU farm financing and the future of an annual rebate that Britain receives from the EU budget.
Blair told Die Welt he hoped he would be able to agree with Germany’s incoming government, expected to be a “grand coalition” of Schroeder’s Social Democrats and Germany’s conservatives under Angela Merkel, on Europe’s goals. —Reuters
