Daily Telegraph February 18, 2003 Fury as Chirac threatens new EU states By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Brussels
President Jacques Chirac made himself Europe's most unpopular leader at the emergency summit in Brussels last night, lashing out petulantly at the East European states that back the American policy on Iraq and inviting accusations of empty grandstanding from fellow EU leaders. In a stunning outburst after dinner, he made a veiled threat to block the accession of former Communist countries lining up to join the EU as a punishment for breaking ranks with France and Germany over the Iraqi crisis. He described the behaviour of the New Europe caste - Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Estonia, Lithunia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Croatia and Albania - as "childish and dangerous". "They missed a good opportunity to keep silent," he said, referring to their signatures on two sets of statements demanding that Saddam Hussein comply with UN Security Council Resolution 1441. "These countries are very rude and rather reckless of the danger of aligning themselves too quickly with the Americans. Their situation is very delicate. If they wanted to diminish their chances of joining the EU, they couldn't have chosen a better way," he added, reminding these governments that a referendum in any one EU state could still block the entire enlargement process. The comments caused consternation in Brussels where the 13 candidate states, including Turkey, were already fuming at having been "disinvited" from yesterday's dinner debate on Iraq. The snub was a result of a last-minute manoeuvre by Chancellor Schröder who feared that these Anglophone, Atlanticist, pro-American states would transform the gathering. Instead, they were fobbed off with a post-summit chat scheduled for this morning. M Chirac's wild language betrayed his frustration at the outcome of the summit, where most EU leaders brushed aside his attempts to take charge of events and dictate a pan-European policy that would string out the weapons inspections in Iraq and allow Saddam to play for time. When M Chirac launched into a moral discourse on the danger of inflicting suffering on the Iraqi people, he was interrupted by an irate Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian leader, who thundered across the table that France had no monopoly on moral judgment. Everybody in the room was worried about "life and death", citing September 11, the Bali bombing, and the fear that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction would fall into the wrong hands, he said. A day of frantic talks had restored the unity of EU foreign policy but not in a way that France and especially Germany had anticipated when Chancellor Schröder pressed behind the scenes to convene the summit, despite grave misgivings in Downing Street. They arrived in Brussels with the wind in their sails, boosted by the spectacular peace marches across Europe and the opaque report to the United Nations by the chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix. But the day slipped away as the pendulum swung back to the New Europe, coalescing around the leadership of Tony Blair and Spain's Jose Maria Aznar, and a tough communique that backed the use of force against Iraq as a last resort. Old Europe's Franco-German core has rarely looked so enfeebled. Mr Schröder was reduced to pleading that Germany had not abandoned her "fundamental position" yesterday and "could live with the compromise". The day before, Paris and Berlin had acquiesced in a face-saving deal at Nato headquarters to allow Patriot missiles, Awacs surveillance aircraft and chemical and biological warfare units to be shipped to Turkey. The climb-down ended the nastiest dispute in the 54-year history of the Atlantic alliance. Whether or not it is enough to save Nato remains to be seen. Turkey said yesterday that confidence in Nato had now been restored, but the month-long refusal by France, Belgium, and Germany to fulfil their treaty obligations to a fellow member has already caused such disgust in Washington that the Bush administration may turn its back on an alliance seen to cause more problems than it solves.
