05-10-2006, 11:43 AM
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#1 (permalink)
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Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 1,000
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French Minister told not to discuus EU at Tory party confere
Quote:
In the wake of Mr Sarkozy’s cheery video address to the annual Tory party conference in Bournemouth, the conventional wisdom seemed to be that the Frenchman has forgiven David Cameron for his decision to pull British MEPs out of the main centre-right grouping in the European Parliament.
Hmm. If that’s so, how come senior European politicians are briefing that Mr Sarkozy was actually invited to come to Bournemouth in person, but refused, after being told he could not discuss “Europe”?
I was told about this in some detail yesterday, by people with good lines of communication to Mr Sarkozy.
The story is that he and Mr Cameron met about two weeks ago, to discuss a personal appearance at the conference by Mr S, the French interior minister and leader of the ruling UMP party. It was all looking rosy, until Mr Cameron said that Mr Sarkozy could not talk about the EU. That was unacceptable, Mr Sarkozy is said to have replied. No visit.
Cameron’s people did a pretty good job of denying the whole thing yesterday, and then there was the friendly video. Who can say?
It is certainly the case that Mr Sarkozy was very peeved by the EPP pull-out, when it was first rumbling around. It has been reported pretty widely that Mr Sarkozy warned Mr Cameron, some six months ago, that he faced being sent to Coventry by other centre-right leaders in Europe if he went ahead with the split.
Officially, of course, the EPP-Tory split is still on, and has merely been postponed until the next European elections in 2009.
All very hard to unravel.
I cannot assure you the stay-away stories are true, and that is why you did not read them in the newspaper this morning. But I can assure you they are believed by some pretty well-connected people.
In the old days, such elusive half-fragments would have circulated in the politico-media swirl for a day or two, and never reached a wider audience. But now, happily, we have blogs, so now you know as much as I know. Ponder at your leisure.
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http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/foreign...06/rumours.htm |
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