Maybe ol' Tony will just have to stick to raking in millions a year from the bankers. For years he tried to talk up Europe though he never really made an effort to move the UK closer to the EU. Heaven forbid he bothered to try something risky. Well, something risky besides invading Iraq and going along with Bush. Now the center-right leaders of the EU are turning away and looking for someone who bothers to care about the EU. Even better, the center-left is just as, if not more, uninterested in Blair. The Guardian:
Sarkozy, the French president, and Merkel, the German chancellor, discussed the new EU president at a dinner at the Elysée palace on Wednesday. They are understood to have agreed that the post should be filled from the main centre-right EPP grouping, which brings together the parties currently ruling most EU countries.
The French made clear in Brussels last night that Blair was losing their support. Jean-David Levitte, Sarkozy's most senior foreign affairs adviser, said: "The UK is not in the eurozone, nor in the Schengen [free travel area in the EU] and it has a number of opt outs. These are not advantageous in this search for a candidate."
