If the CAP is not reformed, and rapidly, then the newly joining members will balloon the cost of running the EU, in effect the 3Bn is only part of the story, as once the amounts go up, so does the amount we in the UK pay, and so up goes our rebate.
The new countries are agrarian, almost exclusively with maybe two, or three exceptions.
Right now Chirac has been wounded in the Euro Constitution vote, even the vote in the Netherlands damaged him as it damaged the credibility of a policy of whihc he was an important supporter.
Add to this that he, mainly, and other insisted that other nations continue the ratification process, wasted huge amounts of cash in the process and the UK refusal to do this as its now pretty pointless.
So now he is trying the old political sleight of hand, blaming the UK and making large noises to distract from his abject failure to understand the French public mood.
The UK has a right to its own opinion, its called soveriengty, so does the Netherlands, its rather unhelpful for France and Germany to make accusations when it is the right of each nation to make its own policy and betrays a certain ignorance, and childish petulance that others have differant viewpoints.
It does not hurt Blair one bit either, Blairs concern is UK public opinion, just as Chirac is pandering to his.
Its unacceptable for Chirac to make accusations through his foreign minister, which is what he has done, rather than make these sorts of statements himself, and it shows the weakness of the Presidential style of government, where authority is moreorless invested in one person with very weak scrutiny and accoutablilty a true debating parliament.
