French Fries and German Sausages

The Malta Independent - Friday Wisdom

I love France, French language is music to my ears, the joie de vivre of the French is admirable at individual level but I find it hard to digest the arrogance of its political class who think of themselves as God’s gift to mankind.

It had to be a French President to admonish the new members of the EU from the former Eastern communist block that they had lost a golden opportunity to remain silent when they showed sympathy with the US position in the run-up to the war against Iraq. I personally never found the US position on Iraq convincing and had great sympathy with the French line of thought. But expecting other sovereign states to agree or remain silent sounds to me as concentrated arrogance.

The Malta government seems to have had a taste of it this week when the French government expressed its concern about Malta’s show of sympathy with the EU Budget 2007-2013 proposal of the UK Presidency. The Malta government was quick to clarify that Malta has not agreed to the budget as proposed but expressed the view that it offers a sound basis for a compromise agreement at the next EU heads of state summit.

Now of all the countries who have a moral right to criticize the British for proposing a budget that does not respond sufficiently to the financial needs of new members states, the French ought to be the last. Because the reason why the British will not budge sufficiently on their rebate to free up funds for meeting the promised financial assistance to new member states is that France would not budge to a review of the subsidies paid from the EU budget to its rich farmers.

Charles Crawford, Britain’s ambassador to Poland, last week described EU farm subsidies as “the most stupid, immoral, state-subsidized policy in human history, give and take communism; EU farm subsidies bloat rich French landowners, pump up food prices and create poverty in Africa.” He could not have said it better in two sentences.

Diplomatic niceties apart, when the EU heads of states meet this week our sympathy should be for the British who in recent weeks has moved from a rigid untouchable rebate position unless the farm subsidies are also put on the negotiation table. Britain has now offered partial dilution of its rebate and is expected to make further concessions in this regard during the summit in a last ditch effort to show some fruits from its term of presidency of the EU.

So whilst putting pressure on the British government to make further concessions to avoid a dangerous stalemate, especially now that Britain is comparatively much richer than it was in 1984 when Thatcher extracted the rebate deal in the Bruges summit, equal pressure should be put on France to accept a 2008 revision of the farm subsidy system.

The 2008 time-line is meant to ease for French political system the pain of the withdrawal symptoms from the EU gravy train. By 2008 Chirac would be political history and a new French president with a fresh mandate could be less sensitive to selfish domestic policies in reaching a compromise to accelerate the reduction of EU farm subsidies in line with what almost everybody else considers fair and reasonable.

Acceptance of the 2008 farm subsidies revision at the EU summit is also crucially important if the Doha round of the World Trade Organization, meeting next week in Hong Kong, is not to flounder crushing the aspirations of alleviating poverty in Africa by opening western markets for their agricultural produce and by not competing with them unfairly on other international markets through price dumping of EU subsidized produce. Failure of the WTO Doha round will render meaningless all millennium exhortations to reduce poverty by 2015 and could give rise to resentment against the rich west which eventually will show itself in different unpleasant forms, including illegal immigration and terrorism.

Much will depend on Angela Merkel who is to have her baptism of fire at the EU summit following her succession to Gerhard Schroeder as German Chancellor. French intransigence cannot be broken by British flexibility alone. Schroeder somehow always toed the French line in prematurely committing himself not to question EU farm subsidies during the budget cycle 2007-2013. Merkel need not feel committed to her predecessor’s assured backing for the French position and without the support of Germany it is France who could be isolated at the next summit rather Britain. After all, new EU countries desperately need a budget agreement even f it is does not fulfill all their aspirations whilst Britain and France will not be hurt, beyond the political pride of their incumbent leaders, by failure to reach a budget compromise.

If Merkel plays her cards right she could broker a reasonable compromise for the EU budget, keep the door open for a successful outcome at the Hong Kong meeting of the WTO Doha round next week, and establish her credentials as a woman of substance on the international scene.

The next few days will decide whether 2005 was a wasted or fruitful year in international politics and much will depend on the clash of French fries and German sausages.