In light of the recent EU summit in Brussels and its subsequent failure, I'd like to hear your points of view about those subjects.

I myself am somewhat undecided. I think the UK rebate is a thing of the past and should go. However it is too good a bargaining chip to just let go, but I wonder what exactly should be reformed in EU spending habits. Of course Blair being elected as a national leader and not as an European one will try only try to further his own country's interests, regrettable but logical.

Now the CAP has gotten a lot of flak, still I got the impression that it is a necessary evil. Throwing a guy like Chirac into the mix can only hamper any reform in this department, also regrettable but logical from a national point of view.

Some irony makes all the countries currently *****ing net contributors to the EU budget. Receivers are... somewhat quiet. Then there's the Netherlands paying so much and Britain receiving EU help for its post-industrial centers and the new members and this and that...

Summary: no thread about this so I made one.

I have the impression that Blair went to Brussels having in his mind how to weaken the french-german axis in order to shift the focus of EU towards his policies and he managed to achieve this. There have been other summits in the past that have been failures, but the impressive thing with this one is that the rude words and the allegations haven't remained behind the closed doors but they have been expressed in public. I can not remember any case in the past where one leader called another leader pathetic.

Also, another thing that impressed me was that Turks politicians and diplomats were not there, a fact that IMO was clearly a result of the french and dutch "no".

Well the EU is definently in crisis right now. Dissolving of the EU at this point is an absurd thought and is not even possible. It is possible however that the political development will be halted for quite some while. There will be no solution for the budget crisis in a few years. Chiraq is a political corpse, he can't give anything away since he is allready very unpopular in France. Schröder faces an election which means that his hands are tied too. The only one with some power now is Blair and even he is unpopular in Britain and has trouble getting support from his own party.

All there is to do right now is wait. Any solution before the German elections is nearly impossible and afterwards we might even have to wait for the French presidental elections and perhaps then a lasting solution could be found.

The EU is simply a club so that the ruling class can unite to shaft the poor. I don't particullaly care for it.

I find it horrendous that Britain has a discount/rebate from their member fees, they honestly should be ashamed of themselves.

Even so I wont approve of any budget that doesnt completely cut the agricultural subsidiaries, complete lunacy which costs us horrendous amounts of money and which wrecks the life of thousands upon thousands of food producers outside our borders. That a country like Ireland still is the one country that receives the most money frm EU just goes to show that they too are totally without self respect and nothing but beggars really. There should be a cash flow from rich to poor within the EU, not one from rich to rich.

Basically I for once completely agree with my prime and thinks he deserves a lot of kudos for digging his heels in.

Without the rebate, Britain would be contributing the most out of any country in Britain to the EU, something in the region of 8 billion. As it stands, we're still the second greatest net contributor, after Germany. Now, it has been said that we're willing to renegotiate the rebate if the CAP is reformed, but since France gets an absurd amount of money from it, Chirac is being somewhat reticent about the matter.