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  France: 'autistic Tories have castrated UK in Europe' |
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 | Reported by guardian.co.uk
on Wednesday, 4 November 2009
(2 weeks ago) |
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French Europe minister says David Cameron's pledge to reclaim EU powers is 'pathetic' and will leave Britain isolatedThe Conservatives are accused by the French government of "castrating" Britain's position within the EU by adopting an "autistic" approach that will take Britain off the radar.Speaking to the Guardian, the French Europe minister, Pierre Lellouche, describes as "pathetic" the Tories' EU plans announced today, warning that they will not succeed "for a minute".Giving vent to frustration across the EU, which has so far only been expressed in private, Lellouche - who says he is reflecting Nicolas Sarkozy's "sadness and regret" - accuses the shadow foreign secretary, William Hague, of a "bizarre autism" in their discussions.
He says: "They have one line and they just repeat one line.
It is a very bizarre sense of autism."Lellouche, one of the most Anglophile members of Nicolas Sarkozy's government, made his remarkable intervention after David Cameron outlined a new Tory approach to the EU in the wake of the full ratification of the Lisbon treaty.
A future Conservative government would seek to strengthen British sovereignty and repatriate a series of powers over social and employment legislation, he said.Cameron insisted that he was not seeking an immediate "bust-up" with the EU.
But within hours of his speech, France's centre-right government condemned the Tory leader's plans, saying that they would marginalise Britain within the EU.Abandoning all diplomatic niceties, Lellouche says: "It's pathetic.
It's just very sad to see Britain, so important in Europe, just cutting itself out from the rest and disappearing from the radar map ...
This is a culture of opposition ...
It is the result of a long period of opposition.
I know they will come back, but I hope the trip will be short." He says Cameron's approach is in line with the Tories' decision to abandon the main centre-right EPP grouping in the European parliament, of which Sarkozy's UMP party is a member.
"They are doing what they have done in the European parliament.
They have essentially castrated your UK influence in the European parliament."Lellouche says he has told Hague personally that his position is a "waste of time for all of us".
He says: "I have told William Hague: go away for two to three years, in your political economic situation you're going to be all by your self and you'll come back.
Go ahead and do it.
That is my message to them … You want to be marginalised? Well, you go for it.
But it's a waste of time for all of us."Lellouche makes clear that the Tories have no hope of securing any support for their plans.
"It's not going to happen for a minute.
Nobody is going to indulge in rewriting [treaties for] many, many years.
Nobody is going to play with the institutions again.
It's going to be take it or leave it and they should be honest and say that."It is a time of tumultuous waters all around us.
Wars, terrorism, proliferation, Afghanistan, energy with Russia, massive immigration, economic crisis.
It is time when the destiny of Europe is being defined - whether or not we will exist as a third of the world's GDP capable of fighting it out on climate, on trade, on every Goddamn issue on the surface of the Earth."We need to be united, otherwise we will be wiped out and marginalised.
None of us can do it alone.
Whether you're big or small, the lesson is the same.
And England's risk is one of marginalisation.
Irrelevance."
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