And guess what's next:
Posted on 06/04/2005 8:10:53 PM PDT by lainie
Tony Blair has given up on Europe as an issue worth fighting for, senior allies of the Prime Minister have told The Sunday Telegraph.
A leading Blairite cabinet minister made the admission last night as the European Union descended into deeper turmoil, with doubts surfacing over the future of the single currency.
Mr Blair, who will seek to shift the focus of his administration on to poverty in the Third World this week during talks with President Bush, has told his closest allies: "Africa is worth fighting for. Europe, in its present form, is not."
The signal is an astonishing U-turn for a leader who said three years ago that the euro was "our destiny" and who announced a British referendum by proclaiming: "Let the battle be joined." But one of his closest allies said that Mr Blair no longer believed that putting Britain at the heart of Europe could be his legacy: "Europe is back to the drawing board. Africa will become more important."
Mr Blair flies to Washington tomorrow to try to secure support for proposals to tackle poverty ahead of next month's G8 summit in Gleneagles. But the Prime Minister is unlikely to be able to divert attention completely from the chaos over Europe's future.
President Chirac of France and Germany's Chancellor Schröder held a summit in Berlin last night after the No votes in France and Holland on the constitution.
Yet the crisis widened beyond the document alone, with a media offensive being mounted to bolster the euro after German officials and an Italian minister openly discussed its possible demise. In the first rumblings of a call for the franc to be reinstated, Nicolas Dupont-Aignant, a member of Mr Chirac's ruling UMP party, said: "France, Italy and Germany would be in a better state without the euro. However, I don't believe we should ditch it now.
"But either it is reformed, and the central European Bank kick-starts growth by lowering interest rates and pursuing a more American-style monetary policy, or the euro will explode in mid-air."
The governor of France's central bank, however, rushed to the euro's defence. Christian Noyer said that the currency was "in no way under threat" following its fall in value since the No votes of the past seven days. He dismissed as "absurd" the idea of a temporary withdrawal from the euro by individual states.
"The euro is a solid currency which brings us a lasting guarantee of stable prices and thus the maintenance of purchasing power for our wages and savings," he told Le Parisien newspaper.
The markets have been slowly adjusting to the possibility of the break-up of the euro, with the spread between government bonds in different countries widening.
Last night, John Redwood, the leading eurosceptic Tory MP, said: "You can't have a single currency without a single government. They are in a mess because they have only done half of it and they are now discovering in a painful way what that means."
The No campaign in Britain will launch a campaign tomorrow demanding a referendum on any aspects of the constitution that leaders might attempt to salvage. It will also unveil 46 new business backers, including Stuart Rose, chief executive of Marks & Spencer.
An ICM poll for the No group found that 81 per cent of voters say that it would be unacceptable to bring in any of the proposals without a referendum in Britain first.
- Additional reporting by Henry Samuel
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
this is HUGE.
Yep, only He could have pulled this off.
Now Lord, please keep Tony from uttering that nonsense about KYOTO.
Here in the US, among other things, we could stand a real hard look, and real, meaningful action on our borders to halt illegal immigration in its tracks and ensure that our immigration policy is made healthy and then maintained strictly through legal immigration.
"Europe is back to the drawing board. Africa will become more important."
What can one say?
It is not possible to fight the poverty of Africa without out first fighting the culture of Africa that produces that poverty. Simply stuffing $millions down the rat hole of primitivism will accomplish nothing except waste more resources.
And guess what's next:
Africa may or may not be worth fighting for, But we need to get out of the Mid-east first. Dont spend a dime on Africa unless we get rid of the leaders of the countries that are not allowing human rights.
France should be in a panic about now. They were the main beneficiary of the whole EU scheme. They get massive subsidies for their farmers and it looks like that may be about to end.
Tony has found another bottomless pit.
My sentiments too!
My, what an inane statement.
Put the damn, over-valued euro to good use then! We'll continue to do what we have to do with our dollars fight for something worth fighting for while you take your high-value currency and shove it down some third-world pimps' pockets!
I can't disagree with anything you said. I'm a little puzzled by this Africa comment, but heck.
Pretty much says it all! A bit abrupt, though. What's the other shoe?
Exactly. Live Aid 1 raised tens of millions of dollars to feed a country (Ethiopia) which will see upwards of 300,000 children die, mostly of malnutrition, in 2005. I looked it up the other day. So. "So, let's do it again, Sir Bob!" ueggh
Wait, is he saying that since he doesn't see himself being crowned King and Grand Pooh Bah of the E.U., he's going to drop it, and instead wants to see Britain return to the good old days of colonization?
That's another part of the short term equation. Blair's smart enough to know Africa's going to remain basket case
until the French are gone, the Swiss/Luxemborg/French/Caribbean bankers are gone, the envirowackos are gone, the
American Poverty Pimps are gone, Karl Marx is gone, the Chinese are gone....
It's nothing more that feel good razzle dazzle that can turn out to be expensive for the US taxpayers.
Bush wastes enough of our money on useless "fixes" for third world problems.
Let Blair tax the @sses off of his constituents.
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