No British rebate in Chirac's EU summit plan
French president Jacques Chirac wants the EU to create a €10bn fund that could eventually double European spending on research to address what he called the urgent threat of international competition.
Chirac spelled out his proposal, an apparent conciliatory gesture to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in a wide-ranging article published today in newspapers across the European Union before tomorrow’s EU summit in the UK.
In a sign of strains to come, Chirac was less accommodating on other issues that have divided EU leaders in the past – Britain’s EU budget rebate and proposals to cut generous farm subsidies that benefit French farmers.
France would not budge on demands that Britain give up the rebate, worth some €5.7bn this year, he said, adding that leaders must agree on the bloc’s 2007-2013 budget by an end-of-year summit to revive public confidence.
“We can succeed in December if everyone shows their spirit of solidarity and responsibility,” Chirac said in the article, published in France’s Le Figaro newspaper.
“France has already widely played its part in the development of a final agreement,” Chirac said, referring to a 2002 EU agreement on farm subsidies, which Paris has refused to re-negotiate.
Separately, Chirac noted: “France will never accept seeing Europe reduced to a simple free-trade zone.”
Blair, who is hosting the informal summit tomorrow, says giving up the rebate must go hand-in-hand with cuts in EU agricultural subsidies – money Blair says would be better spent on research and innovation to make the EU more competitive.
In an apparent gesture to Blair, Chirac will propose the increased spending on research – but without increasing the EU’s common budget and without cuts in agricultural subsidies.
“France proposes mobilising the European Investment Bank to double the capacity of research,” Chirac said, outlining a plan that would have the EU’s financing institution create a €10b fund.
The fund would lever public and private financing, which “would allow an additional €30bn of investment in research projects”, thereby doubling the current spending.
“Our objective is simple: to give Europe back its dynamism,” Chirac said. “It has all the assets to be at front of the global economy. But, faced with international competition, there is urgency.”
France’s rejection of the EU’s proposed constitution in a May referendum was not a signal of France turning its back on Europe, Chirac said.
“They expressed their dissatisfaction, their concerns faced with a Europe that has not managed to reassure them about the present or give them confidence for the future,” Chirac said.
