GERMANY: The former German chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, has said a two-speed Europe would be harmful and has blamed France and Germany for the current tensions in the EU which are "much greater than many want to believe".
Dr Kohl criticised Berlin's determination to reweight EU voting based on population size and called German attempts to shrug off the Stability Pact "a disgrace".
"[France and Germany] will not be able to do anything else except agree a compromise. We have to free ourselves from the idea that the size of a country must be exactly reflected in the proportion of votes," Dr Kohl said in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung yesterday.
"In a larger EU one will have to encourage much more the culture of compromise. That increases trust. It is bad form after a failure to make threats to your opposite number that this or that person will no longer receive money. The most important basis of all is trust. Trust cannot, however, be demanded. Trust must be acquired," he said.
He added that the accession countries, mentioning Poland by name, would have to make compromises as well. However, no firm dates should be set for agreeing the constitutional treaty, nor should a two-speed Europe be pursued in the event of failure to agree.
"It would be harmful to allow a two-speed Europe . . . Whoever demands a two-speed Europe must ask the other members for their permission," he said. "But none of the new members is interested in a two-speed Europe that demotes them to outsiders."
Dr Kohl criticised as too exclusive the current attitude of the Franco-German axis where decisions are made first between Paris and Berlin and then passed on to EU partners rather than the other way round, as he said was the case in his dealings with President François Mitterrand.
"The countries of the former Warsaw Pact are justified to feel that, after long enough under the thumb of Moscow, now they don't want more having their minds made up for them," he said.
The former German leader blamed the war in Iraq for the current tensions and divisions in Europe but said he was confident that, once in the EU, states such as Poland and the Czech Republic would reorientate themselves to Brussels and less to Washington.
Dr Kohl attacked the current administration in Berlin for its attitude to smaller EU member-states as well as its finance and foreign politics.
The Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schröder, and Mr Joschka Fischer, the Foreign Minister, were, he said, acting "with no sense of history. The German position in the centre of Europe compels adoption of a centrist position," he said.
The euro would be introduced in Britain within a decade, he prophesied, while the single currency could also be introduced in non-EU countries such as Ukraine or Switzerland.