Who knows?

All hell has broken loose at the EU summit. The deep divide (you could call it a yawning chasm and not be over exaggerating) between the UK and French positions on the EU budget has lead to a bitter row, with Blair blaming the French and with the French blaming Blair. The BBC has put together some great quotes.

The UK is not isolated in its dislike of the current proposals and in its desire to see a reduction (if not abolition) of the Common Agricultural policy, which amounts for 40% of the EU budget. As I have said in previous comments on this issue, the rebate is justified because of the current budget allocations. Without the rebate, the UK would have paid 15 times as much into the EU as France (and with it, it has still paid 2.5 times as much). A UK official told the BBC that, "The rebate is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself," and I would agree.

The "old guard" of Europe, Chirac and Schroder, are weak and on their way out. Schroder is likely to lose the next German election to Angela Merkel, who has stated that it is unreasonable to expect the UK to cut its rebate without some change to the CAP (see this article). Chirac will retire in 2007, his likely replacement being Nicolas Sarkozy, a politician who has adopted a very UK/American style of politics by bringing his family into campaigning, something that is generally not done in France. Both, though Chirac mainly, are trying to regain popular support through the "safe" tactic of attacking the UK's rebate. This article (which I read through a google translation!) in the French paper Le Monde would suggest the plan is not working for Chirac.

The only thing that seems to be agreed on is that there will be no agreement on the EU budget until after the UK's presidency, which starts on 30th June. With Germany's election looming in the autumn it is likely that Chirac will lose his biggest ally before the battle recommences at the start of next year and will surely face an impossible fight to avoid some sort of renegotiation on the CAP. The old guard is losing its grip on Europe, which can only be a good thing for the UK and, I would suggest, the EU in general.

Special mention for the Bangladesh cricket team after their historic win over Australia in a one-day international. Congratulations to them. More on this here.

As you may have guessed from other posts (yesterdays being a good example) I have exams coming up which means I'm going to be (1) short on time and (2) high on stress. It is possible that there will be more posts like yesterdays (i.e. letting off steam) but I'll try not to drown in self-pity!

A nice song to finish with: "Google"