Milan and co - whose vision of Europe is the best? The Blair vision of low unemployment and a booming economy or the Chirac/Schroeder vision of 20 million unemployed and fat cat farmers being paid to do nothing?
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Chico, could you cut & paste a large article to get us started? :rolleyes -
I prefer the one where we're not in it
while europe tears itself apart financially and is drawn into internicene warfare.Comment
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Well if you insist ... from The Guardian
Blair finds a little heaven in euro hell
Jonathan Freedland in Brussels
Friday June 24, 2005
The Guardian
They were going to give him hell. Only 24 hours earlier, the European parliament had cheered an attack on Britain, denouncing perfidious Albion and its wicked plot to remake the continent in its own image. For days, Europeans had blamed Britain for derailing last week's failed summit. Yesterday they were licking their chops, ready to confront the wrecker-in-chief, Tony Blair.
But when he arrived, they found the words stuck in their throats. Faced with the man himself, their anger dissolved. Perhaps they were struck dumb by the glamour of their star visitor, in Brussels to mark Britain's upcoming presidency of the EU. It's not often MEPs get to debate with a leader of worldwide reputation: they seemed overwhelmed by the occasion.
It was as if Tom Cruise had agreed to do a turn at an amateur dramatics society - prompting the regular cast to forget all their lines. "Before, everyone was saying 'We'll show him'," said one parliament official. "In the end they had nothing to show."
The prime minister swept them off their feet. MEPs queued to shake his hand; the press corps were drafting rave reviews for this morning's continental papers.
For British observers, it was nothing we haven't seen already - and many times over. But that makes it easy to forget the impact the Blair routine can have on an audience exposed for the first time. The conversational style, the self-deprecating asides, the flashes of apparently sincere passion - it had the Brussels audience rapt. In a difficult arena - a hemispherical chamber of warehouse proportions and through multiple translations - Mr Blair somehow managed to hush the room.
It helped that his message was clear. He had come to issue a challenge, to demand the European Union change. If it did not, he warned, it would face "failure on a grand, strategic scale". His target was the traditional social model, the set of protections and regulations that have cosseted European workers for so long. "What type of social model is it that has 20 million unemployed in Europe, productivity rates falling behind those of the USA; that is allowing more science graduates to be produced by India than by Europe?" he asked. "Of course we need a social Europe. But it must be a social Europe that works."
Yet he managed to say that without antagonising his audience - chiefly by sweetening his liberalisation pill with a double coating of sugar.
First, he set out his pro-European credentials, even recalling his 1983 selection as a Labour candidate, when he announced that he opposed the then Labour policy of withdrawal from the EEC. ("Some thought I had lost the selection," he said. "Some perhaps wish I had.")
He pressed all the right Euro-buttons, hailing the union's achievement: "Almost 50 years of peace, 50 years of prosperity, 50 years of progress. Think of it and be grateful." Confounding those who had marked him down as a Eurosceptic, he declared: "I believe in Europe as a political project." His prescriptions for change were not born of opposition to the EU but a desire to "reinvigorate" it.
And the task was urgent. "It is time to give ourselves a reality check," he said. "The people are blowing the trumpets around the city walls. Are we listening?"
Later, he held out a second spoonful of sugar. He wanted to demolish the "caricature" that "Britain is in the grip of some extreme Anglo-Saxon market philosophy that tramples on the poor and disadvantaged." No, Blair's Britain had a minimum wage, a New Deal for the unemployed and spent serious money on health and education. It was, in fact, a social model. "It is just that we have done it on the basis of, and not at the expense of, a strong economy."
The argument was strikingly familiar, albeit relocated. Economic efficiency and social justice were not alternatives, he told his audience, but went hand in hand. The ideal they all cherished was not to be discarded but simply implemented differently, to fit with the "modern world we live in". Only such change would see their cause "recover its strength, its relevance, its idealism and therefore its support amongst the people." It was precisely the message he used to give the Labour party: modernise or die. The prime minister admitted as much, conceding this was the same battle he had fought "all my political life". Now in his second decade as a leader, it seems Mr Blair has a fresh mission: New Labour, new Europe.
And just as he can cajole Labour audiences into applauding ideas they instinctively oppose, so Mr Blair yesterday charmed what should have been the most hostile of crowds.
He had achieved what his aides had wanted - "clarity without confrontation," said one - but something larger too. He had, rhetorically at least, turned what was billed as a crisis into an opportunity. Less than a month ago, the EU was reeling from the French and Dutch no votes; last week an EU summit collapsed. As the incoming president, Mr Blair was pitied as the man who would have to clear up the mess. Yet somehow he has turned that hand to his advantage.
As his advisers never tire of pointing out, Jacques Chirac has just two more years in office, while Gerhard Schröder could be gone by September. Mr Blair, meanwhile, is reinvigorated by a third election victory - it is conveniently forgotten that he has put a time limit on his own tenure - and now, as EU president, has a central role. Witness, say bright-eyed Downing Street officials, Le Monde's description of him as the "new strongman of Europe".
He certainly looked that way yesterday, benefiting from the contrast with the B-list politicos who fill the Brussels chamber. None of the speakers who followed Mr Blair caught fire; only Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the former student radical and now Green leader, came close.
So notch up yesterday as a rhetorical triumph. That is hardly a surprise: in British politics, Mr Blair is the greatest communicator of his generation. But what happens next? In the last few weeks, the prime minister has promised to transform not one continent but two - first Africa, now Europe. That's grand talk. But will it be followed through with deeds? Will this be a defining moment in the rescue of the European Union - or just a really good speech?Comment
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> the Chirac/Schroeder vision of 20 million unemployed and fat cat farmers being paid to do nothing?
That's the best form of EU, because before long it may well cause the whole rotten stinking thing to collapse :b
(Notice I said EU rather than Europe - there is a big difference Chico.)Comment
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Stone him!Blair finds a little heaven in euro hellComment
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Thats the perfect europe for me!!Chirac/Schroeder vision of 20 million unemployed and fat cat farmers being paid to do nothing
Of course we will have pulled out of Europe to let the euro's wallow in the mess that they have created first
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This situation is more complicated than the press make out. You could rephrase the question
Which would you rather have, a UK model with characterless chain stores and shopping malls taking over every high street and suburb with processed, industrial food everywhere or the French model with small family owned shops selling fresh locally baked bread and local wholesome produce?
Do we really want Europe to turn into another US?Comment
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sas - yes I would. question can be phrased like this - would you rather to contract in UK or to contract in sissy and confused Euroland?Comment
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Until two months ago, the Blair vision of the EU was the same as Chirac/Schroeder.The Blair vision of low unemployment and a booming economy or the Chirac/Schroeder vision of 20 million unemployed and fat cat farmers being paid to do nothing?
His vision was the UK in the common currency, the UK signed up to the "constitution", and the CAP unchanged (he signed up to this only two years ago). I think you'll find he is darting about from horse to horse on this one.
Furthermore, his new vision of Europe, as of anything, depends on who he is talking to. Currently, it is of socialism and low unemployment and a booming economy.Comment
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