FOLLOWING THE EUROPEAN UNION

By France, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Spain, the EU commission ...

Well, talks will go on. I suppose, at happens in other states, countries, communities etc sometimes as well that a proposed budject is rejected.

Merkel in 'isolation' warning to Cameron

By Andrew Grice and Stephen Castle
Published: 16 December 2005

David Cameron has been warned by Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, that the Conservative Party faces isolation if he presses ahead with his plan to leave Europe's main centre-right grouping.

In a letter to the Tory leader, Ms Merkel suggested his party would walk into Europe's political wilderness if it quits the European People's Party (EPP-ED), the biggest single group in the European Parliament.

She urged him to think again about the move, which he promised during his campaign to win the Tory leadership on the grounds that the EPP-ED is too supportive of EU integration.

Ms Merkel said: "I look forward to good and intensive co-operation with you, and in particular within the framework of the EPP-ED."

Yesterday, Mr Cameron kept his distance from centre-right leaders by staying away from their traditional meeting before the summit of EU countries in Brussels. Instead, he visited Belfast, which went down badly at the Brussels meeting.

Last night, he made clear he would stick to his plan. His spokesman said: "David Cameron... believes the best thing is to leave the EPP-ED and create a new group that shows the way forward for the EU."

Turkey's human rights in spotlight as author goes on trial for insulting nation

By Elizabeth Davies
Published: 16 December 2005

Turkey's most celebrated and internationally renown-ed writer goes on trial today in Istanbul on charges of insulting his country's national identity in a case widely seen as a crucial test of the Turkish commitment to freedom of speech.

Orhan Pamuk, author of such critically acclaimed novels as My Name is Red and Snow, faces up to three years' imprisonment if found guilty of making comments believed to undermine "Turkishness", under Article 301 of the country's new penal code.

The trial, which relates to comments Mr Pamuk made in February accusing Turks of refusing to talk about the massacre of a million Armenians during the First World War, is not only creating discord at home but threatening to sour the country's membership talks with the European Union.

Ollie Rehn, the EU enlargement commissioner, said the Pamuk case was a "litmus test" of Turkey's determination to act on recent reforms it has made under EU pressure, such as guaranteeing its citizens freedom of expression. "The trial of a novelist who expressed a non-violent opinion casts a shadow over the accession negotiations between Turkey and the EU," he said. "It is not Orhan Pamuk who will stand trial tomorrow, but Turkey."

The 25-nation union officially started entry negotiations with Ankara in October and insists Turkey meet EU standards on human rights before it can join. Despite having revised the penal code this year among reforms made under pressure from Brussels, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government has maintained the status of Article 301, which makes a criminal offence of denigrating national character and insulting the founder of the modern Turkish state, Kemal Ataturk.

Mr Pamuk hit upon a particularly raw nerve in Turkish society when he told a Swiss newspaper in February that "30,000 Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it".

The comments provoked protest in Turkey's most traditional and conservative circles. Prosecutors opened a case against the writer. Mr Pamuk, in an article this week in the New Yorker magazine, said: "I cannot say I was surprised to be put on trial. I believe that the case against me is thin; I do not think I will end up in jail."

A delegation from the European Parliament will attend the trial. Mr Rehn said: "The Commission expects the Turkish government will make it clear to the prosecutors and judges that ... the new penal code should be interpreted fully in line with the European Convention of Human Rights."

Mr Pamuk, 53, has long been a thorn in Turkey's side. His books, in more than 20 languages, paint an often unsettling picture of a Turkey split between Western and Oriental cultures, between conservative and modern, Islamic and secular ways of thinking. He has often spoken out against Turkey's treatment of its minorities, accusing the government of encouraging "crazy" nationalism and violating human rights.

Of this latest case, which has thrust the issue of Turkish freedom of speech into the international spotlight, Mr Pamuk said it was difficult to reconcile the modern, Western-leaning Turkey which Prime Minister Erdogan tries to promote with the hardline, conservative movement prosecuting him for speaking his mind. "The hardest thing was to explain why a country officially committed to entry in the European Union would wish to imprison an author whose books were well-known in Europe," Pamuk wrote.

Dozens of other far less famous writers and academics are also facing charges under the revised penal code.

Turkey's most celebrated and internationally renown-ed writer goes on trial today in Istanbul on charges of insulting his country's national identity in a case widely seen as a crucial test of the Turkish commitment to freedom of speech.

Orhan Pamuk, author of such critically acclaimed novels as My Name is Red and Snow, faces up to three years' imprisonment if found guilty of making comments believed to undermine "Turkishness", under Article 301 of the country's new penal code.

Yes, yes. Some nice "ifs" there.

THE MENU


Starter

Cullen Skink

Main Course Northern Irish rack of lamb

Dessert Drinks Scottish shortbread Welsh Tintern Parva white wine & Devon vineyard's Sharphan Beenleigh red wine, English mineral water

This is
LONDON
16/12/05 - News section

Blair 'to compromise' on EU budget

Tony Blair appeared set to surrender more of Britain's European Union rebate in a bid to resolve the budget crisis.

The Prime Minister is expected to increase his offer of foregoing £5.5 billion over seven years in return for a review of EU spending - including farm subsidies - in 2008.

Mr Blair decided to go for a deal that will salvage the UK's European presidency after private talks with French President Jacques Chirac. New German Chancellor Angela Merkel joined the two men for crucial negotiations as the PM pressed for an agreement.

French opposition to agricultural subsidy cuts and the UK's attachment to the annual £2.7 billion rebate, won by Margaret Thatcher in 1984, torpedoed previous talks.

The PM has come under intense pressure to surrender more of the payback from almost every other EU leader at the Brussels summit. He did not want to make another offer unless there was an opportunity for agreement.

Officials feared that any proposed rebate cut would become the starting point of future negotiations if the summit failed. However, Mr Blair appeared to be on the brink of a securing a fundamental review of EU spending in 2008 in return for a further cut.

British officials have been adamant that the review must allow for a cut in agricultural subsidies in the 2007-13 period under negotiation. That has been fiercely opposed by President Chirac, who insists Common Agricultural Policy payments have been fixed until 2014.

However, speaking after the meeting with his French and German counterparts, Mr Blair's official spokesman said there had been "some progress". President Chirac knows that the review will not reduce his sacred farm subsidies at least until 2014 and only then by unanimous agreement of all EU leaders.

After lunch with all 25 heads of government, the PM continued with one-on-one meetings. He still faces anger from some of the 10 new members over suggestions that they should accept lower levels of development aid in return for a quick deal.

However, Mr Blair is keen to reduce the overall level of spending from the 871 billion euros proposed by Luxembourg, the former holder of the EU Presidency. Offering up more of the rebate will be unpopular back in Britain but failure to secure an agreement would be a personal blow for the PM.

Poor Blair. I suspect he will learn that attempting to please the French is a futile task.

Poor Blair. I suspect he will learn that attempting to please the French is a futile task.

An astonishing 99% of Frenchmen don't want Jacques Chirac to run for a third term, a new opinion poll shows. So how can such a discredited politician still be calling the shots on the EU budget? Apparently, even the British haven't learned that appeasement never works -- whether it's with Nazis, terrorists or French presidents hooked on agro-subsidies. Tony Blair's offer to forgo part of the British rebate without touching the Common Agricultural Policy, which still eats up 40% of the EU budget, produced a rather predictable reaction from the main beneficiaries of the CAP. Sensing vulnerability on the prime minister's part, Mr. Chirac immediately declared the offer unsatisfactory and demanded more. ...Sir Charles Crawford, the British ambassador to Warsaw, wrote an "internal" email that somehow found its way to the press. The CAP is "the most stupid, immoral state-subsidized policy in human history, give or take communism," he wrote. "It's a program which uses inefficient transfers of taxpayers' money to bloat rich French landowners and so pump up food prices in Europe, thereby creating poverty in Africa, which we then fail to solve through inefficient but expensive aid programs." ...At the EU summit starting Thursday, Mr. Blair could return to his original agenda and propose serious CAP reform in exchange for cuts in the rebate. Not that such a budget would have the slightest chance of being passed. But at least he'd go down fighting for the right principles.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113442344915720457.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep

An astonishing 99% of Frenchmen don't want Jacques Chirac to run for a third term ...

16 December 2005 21:57:32 GMT
Blair delivering final EU budget proposals

British prime minister Tony Blair has announced that Britain is prepared to start paying more into the European Union's coffers.

Speaking to reporters about the UK's revised budget proposals, the prime minister claimed that his decisions were "fair and reasonable". He declared that UK was prepared to "pay our fair share of the costs of economic development in these new member states of the EU but preserves absolutely the rebate in respect of the rest of expenditure".

Mr Blair explained that the talks had been "extraordinarily complicated" and warned that a final decision on the revised proposals could take time, the BBC reports. Britain currently holds the EU presidency and the prime minister is keen that its six month term of office should be a success.

Mr Blair held private talks today with German chancellor Angela Merkel, who is attending her first EU summit as leader, and French president Jacques Chirac, in a bid to reach a consensus on the budget proposals.

Following talks with EU leaders at a summit in Brussels, Mr Blair may give up an additional £2 billion (three billion euros) of the UK's EU rebate over seven years in order to ensure the proposals are accepted by EU leaders, according to reports. Last week, the prime minister offered to surrender eight billion euros (£5.4 billion) of the rebate over the next seven years.

The annual EU rebate of £2.7 billion a year, won by then prime minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984, has been an increasingly contentious issue since the European Union expanded from 15 to 25 states in 2004. However, many Britons support the EU rebate and are likely to oppose the prime minister's decision.

The ten EU member states admitted in 2004 are expected to continue costing richer countries money as they bring their economies in line with the rest of the union.

The final revised budget proposals are now being put before all 25 EU member states and are believed to include changes to the current EU farm subsidies system, another contentious issue.
© Adfero Ltd