La fureur et les coups de téléphone de Brown à Blair: il faut résister à Sarko

L’étrange combinaison britannique à Bruxelles (un PM démissionnaire, sans autorité, à Bruxelles et son successeur déjà tout puissant, absent de Bruxelles) a donné lieu à des interventions sévères de Brown auprès de Tony Blair. Le futur nouveau PM britannique a intimé à son prédécesseur quelque chose qui semblait être l’ordre de résister aux Français sur la question de la suppression du membre de phrase sur la liberté de la concurrence dans les pays de l’UE. Blair a expliqué qu’il n’y avait rien à craindre, qu’il tenait les choses bien en main.

Finalement, les interventions de Brown n’ont pas donné de résultat tangible sur l’accord final, — et elles ont gâché la transition entre les deux PM. Comme le note le Daily Telegraph aujourd’hui, «Blair's EU 'cave-in' ends truce with Brown»

Le Guardian détaille dans un article, aujourd’hui également, les péripéties de cet extraordinaire épisode du sommet de Bruxelles, tandis que les Polonais et leurs humeurs terribles occupaient le devant de la scène.

«Gordon Brown dramatically intervened in a crucial European summit yesterday to overrule the prime minister in his last week in office and demand that Britain challenge a French move to dilute Europe's commitment to a free market.

»Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, triggered a row at the Brussels meeting by watering down a pledge to maintain “free and undistorted competition” in the operation of the single European market.

»Mr Brown, who was not attending the summit, intervened with Tony Blair after the prime minister assented to the French demand. He phoned Mr Blair three times in Brussels as he digested the potential impact of the Sarkozy coup. A chastened prime minister was forced to go back to the negotiating table to demand a new “protocol” to guarantee that the EU's powers to regulate cartels and anti-trust issues were not impaired.

(…)

»Following Mr Brown's intervention, the head of the European commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, was asked to clarify the problem with the French.

»On a day of high drama in Brussels, Downing Street yesterday morning maintained that it had been studying the Sarkozy move for days and had no problems with the shift. But Mr Brown signalled his displeasure around lunchtime, insisting that the European commission talk to the French president and agree on the “protocol”.

»“There's been an issue of competition. France objected to one part...on free and undistorted competition,” Mr Blair said last night. “That's now been resolved.”

»He said that the “legal basis of the free market” was unaffected. “Are we changing the basis on which the EU works? The answer is we're not. Let's not be absurd about this.”

»The British business lobby, the CBI, voiced alarm about the implications of the French success. William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, described the lost objective of the EU as the union's “jewel in the crown”. “A bit that many of us would have preferred to see in, is now out,” Mr Blair conceded.»

Mis en ligne le 23 juin 2007 à 10H43