A squalid climax to Blair's career

There was unprecedented drama and poignancy at the recent European Union "summit" in Brussels. For it was the European debut of Nicholas Sarkozy, the newly elected French president, and the positively final appearance of Tony Blair as Britain's prime minister.

The two men represented the future and the past in more ways than one.

Sarkozy still had a sphinx-like reputation when he arrived in Brussels. He had presented himself in the elections as a free market capitalist who would revive the French economy by such policies as tax cuts.

But he had also argued that France and the EU should offer greater "protection" to French workers and "vital" French industries.

So which was he: a "European" protectionist or an "American" free marketeer?

The answer was revealed when a central European diplomat noticed that several key words had disappeared from the previously circulated draft of a "mandate" for a new European treaty. It no longer promised the "free and undistorted competition" that had been the central economic principle of European integration since the 1957 Treaty of Rome.

Offending phrase

Sarkozy had quietly approached Angela Merkel (who was wearing two hats as both German Chancellor and holder of the six-monthly rotating European Council presidency) and persuaded her to drop the offending phrase - and to do so without telling any of the other European leaders in the council.

Sarkozy stood revealed as a European protectionist who had achieved the long-sought French objective of abandoning Europe's commitment to free markets. France will now seek to drive a fleet of Peugots and other "national industrial champions" through this gap.

He will probably succeed. For by this collaboration Sarkozy and Merkel have reconstituted the Franco-German axis that had dominated the EU for most of its history. Paris and Berlin are again in the driving seat.

And Blair? He had nodded the change through either without noticing it or because he is only superficially attached to the principle of free economic competition (and to most other principles, come to that.)

Back in London, however, Blair's successor, the workaholic and detail-obsessed Gordon Brown, saw the change and went into one of his dark intense frenzies.

After three angry phone calls, Blair went back and persuaded the council to attach a codicil to the mandate saying nice things about competition. Both men professed themselves satisfied. But both men know that these minor addenda to Euro-treaties have little or no legal force.

This defeat for the British vision of European integration was merely one step backward in a generally sad, even pathetic, retreat by Blair at Brussels. He had scheduled his departure from office immediately following the Euro-Summit so that he would have a final triumph to flourish on the way out.

That made him desperate for an agreement and thus unable to stand firm in negotiations - except on those issues (so-called "red-lines") which were so trivial that everyone else was happy to give him a "victory" on them.

As a result Blair returned to London (via Rome to tell the Pope he wasn't becoming a Catholic any time soon) with a proposed European treaty that appoints a new European foreign minister (under a new name) in charge of a full corps of European diplomats; extends European majority voting to forty new areas including immigration; grants the EU a legal "personality", like that of a nation-state, so that it can sign treaties and claim a UN seat; and much else.

Blair and Brown both argue that this new "treaty" is not a "constitution" and that therefore they need not hold the referendum which they promised in their 2005 election manifesto (and which they know they would lose.)

Cosmetic differences

For there are only cosmetic differences between the European "constitution" of two years ago and the proposed new "treaty".

As a Dutch campaigner observed, the treaty is a "constitution in drag" - something that the Irish Foreign Minister confirmed recently when he said the treaty was "not dramatically different". (Ireland will be holding a referendum on the constitution-treaty.)

So Blair's last major official action is to seek a massive transfer of sovereignty from London to Brussels against the will of the British people and contrary to his own promise to them in the last election. It is a squalid climax to his career.

Washington has cause to worry too. For 50 years the US State Department has encouraged London to accept ever-more intrusive Euro-integration on the theory that Britain would subtly push Europe in a pro-American and free-trade direction.

Instead, Sarkozy's victory, his new alliance with Merkel for a protectionist "Fortress Europe" and the Blair-Brown acceptance of this - all these suggest that Europe may be transforming America's best friend into just another European "ally".

John O'Sullivan, a former adviser to prime minister Lady Thatcher, is the author of 'The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister', Regnery 2007, and a member of Benador Associates.