Nordics sick of EU’s fish stew

By Rein F Deer

Date: 17/11/05

Many, many years ago, then UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher warned her countrymen against the sinister Brussels bureaucrats who were conspiring to smuggle Socialism into the cosy free trade area of the European Community.

"They want to make Europe a huge Sweden," she said, avoiding the expression "Fascism with the human face", common currency at the time when referring to the Swedish miracle.

Equally sensitive, the Swedes were aggrieved that they were expected to join the EU in 1995 instead of, as seemed to them the obvious way to do it, the EU joining Sweden.

Somehow Sweden managed to swallow its pride over this slight, and neither they nor any of the other Nordics have seriously rocked the boat since they joined.

But since the ten new boys arrived last year, the Nordic reputation for cool tolerance has been tested.

Communications Commissioner Margot Wallström has been infuriated about Franco-German horse trading over the REACH chemicals regulation, her baby left over from the last Commission.

She seems not to be getting wholehearted support from the male chauvinist Mediterranean men's club, alias José Manuel Barroso's Commission. I predict a controlled explosion before her time is up,

which may be closer than most people think - she is a shoo-in to succeed Göran Persson as Sweden's Socialist Party leader.

Noises off in Finland too, where Erkki Tuomioja, foreign minister of the best-behaved member state, has failed to show the European Parliament the kind of respect it has come to expect. He allowed in a blast of cold Nordic air by suggesting the Parliament was "irresponsible" mainly because it was elected by the citizens of Europe rather than by national Parliaments.

The ever-diplomatic Elmar Brok felt the right thing was to question Finland's capacity to chair the Union when its turn comes up in the second half of 2006.

In short, there is plenty of bad temper around just now. Czech President Vaclav Klaus has enjoyed his moment in the sun, or at least the TV lights, criticising the EU on the whole and especially the draft European constitution. And he may well be right that there is a huge gap between real and political Europe.

But perhaps he should also concede that there is quite a gulf between what the new member states promised when they joined and what they have delivered so far.

From up north, the EU looks more and more like a Mediterranean muddle, a dubious fish stew cooked up by Barroso and his cronies. As for the godfather of recent stagnation, Jacques Chirac, that latter day Leonid Brezhnev in tailor-made suits, it is surely time for what footballers call "an early bath"?

Comment feature looking at recent political developments in the European Union from a perspective of its Northern European Member States.