Source: The Economist.
EVEN the French say so: David Cameron played a near-perfect match. “He is a real negotiator; very, very tenacious,” declared a senior French official amid the brutal bargaining over the EU’s seven-yearly budget that dragged on for a whole night and a day. When it was all over, Mr Cameron was none too shy about trumpeting his success:
The British public can be proud that we have cut the seven-year credit card for the European Union for the first time ever. And as a result the EU’s seven-year budget will cost less than 1% of Europe’s gross national income. That is also for the first time ever… I also said that I would also never, in any way, entertain any further changes to the British rebate. Attempts to undermine the rebate were made again and again at almost every meeting there has been on the subject over the last few months. As ever, it was attacked from every side. But I fought off these attempts. The British rebate is safe.
While every British prime minister had conceded an increase in the budget, Mr Cameron had brought it down. While Tony Blair had surrendered part of the British rebate in 2005, Mr Cameron had preserved it. And he did not even find himself battling alone.
In truth, Britain entered the negotiation over the trillion-euro budget with several advantages. First, as leader of the most Eurosceptic of the EU’s member states, Mr Cameron cared least about the EU being seen to fail over the budget. That is not true of Germany, France and many others, who cannot appear too unashamed in sacrificing the cause of the European Union for narrow national interests.
Categories: Europe, European Union, UK
When he made historic speech on the future of EU it revealed him a visionary leader. Leaders of such clear thinking and vision are seldom born in history. Again he proved himslef a legend in EU budget matter. Even iron lady of Germany found no other way but to agree. Though to save her face the German papers are reporting the news differently. The English newspaper of Berlin reported in following words,”Deal done! Worth waiting for,” European Council President Herman Van Rompuy wrote on the online message service Twitter.Negotiating for nearly 26 hours with little break, Merkel, backed by British Prime Minister David Cameron, led a sustained push for the EU budget for 2014-2020 to share in the austerity national governments are facing. The tentative agreement would trim spending by three percent over the rest of the decade.”In my opinion this is a good deal and it is important,” said Merkel. “The effort was rewarded.” Those who have close eyes on the situation know it well it is the British PM who gets credit for this bold, clear and visionary stand. Well done British PM David Cameron you are the champion of EU.