Western European News Digest
Bush '41'-Linked Thinktank Urges Overhaul in U.S.-Europe Relations
The Forum for International Policy, headed by Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Eagleburger, issued a proposal May 30 stating that the Evian G-8 summit June 1-3 "is arguably the most important G-8 meeting in recent times, precisely because the leaders have such discordant views on how to manage global affairs. Until they can reach a common understanding on a desired course for the global ship of state, no real progress can be made on important issues such as the necessary conditions for creating jobs globally, terrorism, Middle East peace, North Korea, and economic and political reform in Africa.
"In fact, Evian is potentially an inflection point in the history of G-8 summits. If the leaders cannot surmount intense policy and personal differences over Iraq, or worse, are unwilling to make the effort, the G-8 process may collapseat least at the level of the leaders. However, if the leaders decide to talk openly among themselves about what divides them in order to find common ground on global issues that can only be tackled jointly, there is hope the G-8 process can be revitalized and even strengthened.
"First, President Chirac and his G-8 colleagues should agree to put aside the formal agenda and the prepared communiqués.
"Second, President Chirac could convene his guests in private, without aides or note takers, for a frank discussion of how differences over Iraq have resulted in the most serious fissures in recent memory in the translatantic relationship, a relationship that covers political, security and economic interests vital to all the participants.
"The global economy today, with the looming menace of deflation, merits the same attention from G-8 leaders as when French President Giscard d'Estaing hosted the first Economic Summit in 1975 to discuss, informally and without aides, the grave state of the world economy.... Evian could be the time and place to restore the necessary trust and confidence among G-8 leaders."
France Imposes Stability Pact Austerity
France's budget deficit has risen from 3.05% of GDP in 2002 to an estimated 3.7%, so far, in 2003. This is way beyond the 3% tolerated by the Stability Pact addendum to the European Union Maastricht Treaty. By 2004, France's indebtedness will also breach the 60% limit permitted under the EU Stability Pact.
The EU bureaucracy is putting maximum pressure on France to cut public spending. French Minister of Finances and Budget Francis Mer has announced that France will not be able to comply with Maastricht by 2006, which all countries in deficit had pledged to do.
Government has frozen all spending at this year's levels for 2004 and is imposing austerity measures in several areas: research and development, education, and retirement pay. Cuts in the latter two areas have provoked a flare-up in strike activities which could lead to 1995-style mass strike activity.
The government has decided to fire 5,000 classroom assistants. Worse, the government decided to "decentralize" toward the regions, 110,000 non-teaching employees of the public education system (nurses, social assistants, etc.), which many suspect will lead to layoffs, as regions are financially weaker than the central government. Teachers have conducted nine separate strike actions between last October and the present, with strong rank-and-file support.
Government has decided to push pension reform to address the demographic shiftthe rising ratio of senior citizens to youth. By 2008, the government will raise the number of years public-sector workers must have worked to receive a full pension from 37.5 to 40, which is already the rule for private-sector employees. Beyond 2008, the requirement will rise to 41 years, and then to 42. Government is also urging people to work beyond the age of 60.
Two large national demonstrations, one May 13 (with 1 million participants) and the other May 25 (700,000) were the prelude to strike actions set to start in the public transport sector on June 2 and 3, opening the way, perhaps, to developments similar to the national transport strike which provoked Prime Minister Juppé's resignation in 1995.
'Trigger-Happy' Arrogance Undermines U.S. Foreign Policy
A Washington-based opponent of the neo-cons, David P. Ryan, penned a letter to the editor of the Financial Times, published on May 26, responding to journalist Martin Wolf's report on the Bilderberg meeting (see article INDEPTH). Ryan's response was the lead letter in the May 28 Financial Times, headlined "Trigger-Happy Arrogance of Neo-Conservatives Undermines U.S. Foreign Affairs Self-Restraint"
Ryan finds Wolf's arguments "very intriguing," and stresses the important contributions made by "a certain kind of American nationalist," who promoted a foreign policy that was "generally altruistic, idealistic, slow to anger, and slower to use force."
Ryan writes: "This is precisely why so many conservatives like me feel betrayed by the neo-conservatives.... By acting with such trigger-happy arrogance, in pursuing a dubious war, they seriously undermined the assumption of self-restraint in American foreign policy.... Without restraint, the damage the U.S. may do to the world in the future could be great." Ryan charges that neo-conservatism is "more than irritating; it is sinister."
He points to George Washington's farewell address, who warned of the methods and intentions that are evident with this band of neo-cons, quoting Washington's warning against those "ambitious, corrupted or deluded citizens [with the] facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearance of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation."
Chirac Denounces U.S. Hostility to Role of China, India
London's Financial Times ran a full-page interview with French President Jacques Chirac May 26, in which Chirac denounced the "hostility coming out of Washington," and insisted that Europe, China, and India have a role to play.
President Chirac stated that the most recent UN Security Council resolution on Iraq should not be read as approval for the Iraq war. "A war that lacks legitimacy does not acquire legitimacy just because it has been won." Chirac noted that the U.S. had to make concessions to its critics in the Security Council: "The U.S. has had to put a lot of water in its wine over the last 15 days at the UN.
"I have been struck by the hostility towards France coming out of Washington, and it saddens me. But I regard this as the chattering of a few people, which has been picked up by the media. Frankly, I don't lose much sleep over it.
"The U.S. has a vision of the world which is very unilateralist. I hold a vision of a multilateral world which apparentlyand I say: apparentlyis opposed to this. Europe is, and certainly will be in the future, here to stay as a major world power. Then we have to take account of the emergence of China on the world stage, and India too. So there are other poles."
Tony Blair Under Fire Over Iraq's WMD
Prominent British politicians have slammed U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and British Prime Minister Tony Blair over "lies" about Iraq's WMD.
Robin Cook, who quit as leader of the House of Commons in protest against the Iraq war, told BBC: "If Donald Rumsfeld [citing Rumsfeld's remarks to the New York CFR on May 26] is now admitting the weapons are not there, the truth is the weapons probably haven't been there for quite a long time. It matters immensely because the basis on which the war was sold to the British House of Commons, to the British people, was that Saddam represented a serious threat."
Former cabinet minister and outspoken Labor MP Tony Benn told LBC radio: "I believe the Prime Minister lied to us and lied to us and lied to us.... The whole war was built upon falsehood and I think the long-term damage will be to democracy in Britain."
Tam Dalyell, father of the House of Commons, lashed out at Blair, after intelligence sources accused Blair's office of "sexing up" reports on Iraq's WMD, to make the threat appear more immediate against the wishes of the Joint Intelligence Committee.
LaRouche Organizers Engage French Ambassador to USA
LaRouche organizers in Houston, Texas attended an extraordinary public event May 26 at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy, featuring France's Ambassador to the United States, Jean-David Levitte. Copies of LaRouche's exposés of the Strauss/Kojeve kindergarten were widely distributed, specially to the Houston-based diplomatic community.
Ambassador Levitte's speech was a pointed thrust for a saner policy, deep in the heart of Bush country. As moderator Edward P. Djerejean joked in his introduction, "Rice is probably the closest to Crawford, Texas that any Frenchman has been lately!"
In his remarks, the Ambassador stressed France's solidarity with the U.S. after the 9/11 attacks. "Nous sommes tous Americains!" However, this did not extend to providing support for a destructive war, whose stated objective, disarmament, was being accomplished peacefully by the UN inspectors, he asserted.
He concluded: "With the world economy flat, Europe and the U.S. together should be the engine of world development. Yes, we are friends. But friends are allowed to disagree!" In the Q&A that followed, Levitte blasted what he called the "snipers" in the U.S. media, and their accusations of French/Iraqi connivance.
LaRouche associates spoke to Levitte, asking "But did you know that the real authors of this warBush's Brain Trusttrained under a fascist philosopher named Leo Strauss, and that they also studied in Paris a Synarchist named Alexandre Kojeve?" "Yes, I knew that!" Levitte replied.
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