Independent: Blair's concession to European critics is rebuffed as Ahern joins attack on rebate

Independent"Blair's concession to European critics is rebuffed as Ahern joins attack on rebate

Downing Street is worried that Britain has alienated natural allies, including the 10 new members who joined the EU last year, by blocking a deal at the summit. Mr Blair's official spokesman made clear that he would trade the rebate for cuts in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), saying that the British public would accept that as "a price worth paying".

But Mr Blair will not escape further criticism from Britain's EU partners.

The Irish premier Bertie Ahern said plans by Mr Blair to link reform of the EU's CAP with its EU rebate was a dishonest and unfair argument. Mr Ahern said he totally disagreed with Mr Blair's position on the EU budget which caused a stalemate at last week's European Council summit. Jean-Claude Juncker, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, which holds the EU's presidency, will defend his handling of the summit today and challenge Mr Blair's credentials as a reformer of European farm subsidies. He will address the European Parliament a day before Mr Blair outlines to MEPs Britain's goals for its six-month presidency starting on 1 July. Mr Juncker said that the budget dispute represented "a fundamental divergence about the way Europe will develop". He will say today that, in 2002, Mr Blair signed up to the agreement on agriculture spending he has since targeted so publicly. He is expected to remind Britain it endorsed this policy 18 months ago in a letter with five other countries calling for a break on EU spending." There is a groundswell developing in European capitals that maybe Britain's Tony Blair wants the EU to fall apart in order to strengthen British interests in the world. History seems to repeat itself?