At summit, Big Three face a balancing act (Britain , France, Germany)

[Dover]

Friday, February 13, 2004

Britain, France and Germany will want to show authority, but not too much of it

LONDON Tony Blair, Gerhard Schröder and Jacques Chirac meet next Wednesday in Berlin in a three-way summit that they think could be an important step toward closing Europe's divisions, but that many of their partners regard anxiously as a wind-tunnel test for a directorate that could run Europe.

British, French and German officials talk, without great precision, of discussions, open to others in the future, meant to bring Europe a new sense of leadership, direction and harmony.

Indeed, Britain sees the possibility of moving France and Germany toward a less statist, more liberal economic agenda. The French line, using the phrase "a little cultural revolution" to describe British engagement in the European project and Blair's willingness not to try to break the Paris-Berlin relationship, expressly acknowledges that the European Union's old French-German motor is no longer adequate alone to pull an EU of 25 members along with it. As for the German organizers, Schröder first called for a triumvirate in 1997 before he was an official candidate for chancellor.

Yet the meeting will take place in a mood of awkwardness and caution.

The three leaders, if not quite Europe's sick men, are each in serious political difficulty at home and, by EU standards of influence, individually short on proselytizing or unifying authority.

Blair is tortured by a dramatic loss of national confidence, Chirac by charges of corruption and splits within his political support at home, and Schröder by an unpopular reform program and the potentially fatal prospect of losing up to 14 regional elections during the year.

At the same time, the concern about a triangular power grab is such in places like Italy, Spain and Poland (and, to a lesser degree, the Netherlands), that reassuring other EU countries has become of importance equal to whatever the participants can demonstrate in terms of new solidarity. In an attempt to twist the neck of these fears, a British official said that the idea of a "permanent directorate" was "not realistic" and was, "in fact, offensive."
....cont'd

http://www.iht.com/articles/129455.html


International Herald Tribune