| New German Chancellor Angela Merkel to meet Blair |
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BERLIN: New German chancellor Angela Merkel is meeting prime minister Tony Blair Thursday for talks on obviously the European Union budget dispute that has seen Britain pitted against Germany and France.
The U.K., which holds the current EU presidency, has expressed its eagerness to resolve the budget issue that has threatened to ensue into a major controversy over rebates enjoyed by Britain and farming subsidies allowed to France under a common agricultural policy.
Blair expects to see Germany's willingness to reform the common agricultural policy before an EU summit next month as he has clarified that he can compromise on Britain's entitlement of 3-billion-pound-a-year rebate, only if there are fundamental changes in the common agricultural policy. Germany has been insisting that the rebate is unjustified.
Merkel, who was sworn in as Germany's first woman chancellor on Tuesday, had brief visits to Paris and Brussels where she stressed the need for a more constructive approach to solving Europe's common problems. At the European Parliament in Brussels, she said she supports a European constitution, an issue that has been rejected by voters in France and the Netherlands. "Europe needs the constitution… [we] should not give up the constitutional treaty."
She had also said Europe's security concerns should be debated within Nato rather than the EU. She is for closer ties with the U.S., but disagreed on the U.S. stand on retaining forces in Iraq.
Germany's new Social Democrat foreign minister Frank Walter Steinmeier, who is accompanying Merkel, had ruled out any fundamental change in the country's EU policy, saying there would be "much continuity" from Schroder's tenure.
During her Paris visit, Merkel, along with French president Jacques Chirac, emphasised the need for a strong and effective partnership to continue at the heart of the EU.
The first German chancellor from the former communist east, she is seen as less attached to the social model that underpinned the prosperous west in the 1960s and 1970s and more open to far-reaching economic reform.
Posted
on : Thu, 24 Nov 2005 10:25 GMT | General News
By : Mike Lawson
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