March 25, 2004

EU agrees anti-terrorism measures

[...]
Spain's newly elected Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who has threatened to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq, is not attending the summit as he is yet to form his government.

His election could, however, herald a breakthrough in discussions on the EU's proposed constitution that broke down amid acrimony in December.

Spain and Poland had refused to accept the proposals for a new system of voting on EU decisions.

But Spain's new leaders appear prepared to compromise; the Poles, says the BBC's Chris Morris, are sensing which way the wind is blowing and do not want to be isolated.

"There was a unanimous agreement to finish the negotiations at the latest by the June (17-18) summit," an EU diplomat was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency on Thursday evening.

Streamlining EU institutions is seen as vital if administrative and political gridlock is to be avoided after the 10 new countries join the 15-member bloc on 1 May.

The leaders will also discuss what until the Madrid bombs was going to be the summit's main theme: economic reforms aimed at making the EU the world's most dynamic economy by 2010.

What could be worse than that Zapatero guy?
His Socialist "leadership" of Spain has been a disaster and it's only been a couple of weeks!
Not only does he want to pull Spain's troops out of the Iraq Coalition, but he also announced that Spain was ready to sign the "most excellent" EU constitution.
Spain (under Aznar) and Poland had previously fought signing because it gave unequal voting weight to France and Germany (who want to be the de facto rulers of the EU), to the detriment of smaller countries like Poland and Spain.
Now that Zapatero's given in--Heaven knows why and Zappo's not saying--Poland can't hold out alone.
But what the BBC's not saying is that the real objector to signing this dreadful constitution will and should be Great Britain and when this issue comes to the fore, it will be a moment of truth for Tony Blair.
Most Brits are against it, even though Tony has tried and tried to sell them on it.
If he tries to sign it on the U.K.'s behalf, look for Britain to go Tory and elect Michael Howard, who's already publicly stood against signing it.
Britain doesn't want to surrender her sovereignity and why should she?
Among other things, signing this constitution would prohibit any member countries from helping the U.S. "unilaterally" (particularly if Jacques Chirac has anything to say about it) and God knows what it would do to NATO!
As for the EU attaining "most dynamic economy by 2010," good luck with that.
Not only will our unofficial American boycott of Weasel goods, services and tourism continue, but they'd have to beat out the Chinese, too.
(And that's not going to happen.)
Furthermore, you don't get a vibrant economy under any form of Socialism, which is where the EU's heading in spades!
The new Soviet European Union--I can't believe we fought and lost thousands of men over there in WWI and WWII and protected them against the "evil empire" of the U.S.S.R. so that they could devolve to this, its pink cousin!