The course of the failed EU budget negotiations have revealed David Cameron's quasi-Thatcherite negotiating style, enjoyed by Ms Merkel but not by many others.
David Cameron has widely been described as having been forced to bite the bullet and show his true feelings on Europe these past few days, and in doing so, proved himself a bastion of austerity and a scapegoat on the international stage.
The prime minister has been in Brussels as part of debates around the very contentious European Union budget, which ultimately ended in no agreement and a postponement of the decision.
Herman van Rompuy was in the unenviable position of chairing the summit to determine the EU budget, numbering somewhere around the mark of one trillion euros.
Britain, Sweden and the Netherlands wanted cuts (and still do) of between 50 and 75 billion euros, which von Rompuy attempted to balance against the diametric views of countries like Greece.
Cameron began proceedings with a heated discussion on the administration budget with voa Rompuy and Jose Manuel Barosso. Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel had both made noises about the failure of talks, due to disparate views.
That being said, for France it was not all doom and gloom as they and Poland had both managed to take the edge off cuts to agriculture subsidies, with both countries representing the biggest benefactors of that.
In their coverage of the summit, Le Monde highlighted criticism of Cameron and his inflexible stance. This represents a very definite theme in international coverage of the talks, that Cameron is concerned only with Britain’s interests and finances.
According to the Polish Press Agency, the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, has criticised the stance of the UK government, saying:
“Unfortunately Britain is our opponent over the EU budget”
The Polish opposition leader has, however, criticised Tusk, citing that in European voting blocs the prime minister’s party sits with the British Conservative Party, and saying Cameron is not aiming cuts at Poland.
Despite this there was a widespread perception of Cameron being the figurehead of those pushing for austerity in the EU budget.
Spain’s ABC newspaper placed the blame for slow progress on factions fighting – austerity versus benefactors. In this argument they point the finger directly at Cameron for leading the austerity drive.
The German press (including The Local and Spiegel) takes a similar line as well, pointing to an austerity bloc, led by none other than Cameron. This picture is one seen across mainland-European press coverage, including in much-maligned Greece.
The stumbling blocks of the summit were found mainly in the polarised opinions of member states over the budget in a time of recession.
It does seem, though, that Cameron has been largely perceived to be leading the charge for injecting austerity into the EU budget and so is being set up as a scapegoat for slow progress.
Whatever the case may really be behind the closed doors of negotiating rooms, let’s just say very few will be jealous of the task set out before van Rompuy when he has to do it all again next year.
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7 Responses to “Everyone blames Cameron for leading Europe’s disastrous austerity drive”
janeM
labour rely on the poor to vote for them. that’s why a Labour government will NEVER reduce their numbers
Slav
Mr Cameron should first introduce a plan how to engage his own countrymen into work rather than spending for them billions for benefits. Billions of Brits sit at home since 20-30 years doing nothing because they have more in benefits that from work. EU citizens claiming benefits are nothing if compared to British having families wit 4-5 children and all being unemployed and having low skills and education, doing nothing to make their future better, but just screaming how immigrants are bad. Of course they are bad in your point of view from the sofa perspective, you don’t have to be jealous that other people can just work, claim benefits when they need them rather than spending whole life on them and these people also prefer to study and improve their qualifications in any means, opposite to most of Brits. Do you still believe that millions of other nationals will work for so lazy society so you could sit down and do nothing. That’s why your system collapse and will continue to collapse getting really nightmare if you don’t do anything with your own people mentality.