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To: IngotWeTrust who wrote (71907)	6/18/2001 3:17:25 PM
From: long-gone	Respond to of 116798

EU LEADERS WARNED OF POPULAR REVOLT Posted By: Rixon Date: Saturday, 16 June 2001, 11:56 a.m. By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard and George Jones in Gothenburg AN uprising of "popular discontent" could sweep the Continent in six months because of poor preparations for the introduction of euro notes and coins, European leaders were told yesterday. Nicole Fontaine, the president of the European Parliament, told the EU summit that a bungled launch of the euro currency on Jan 1 could have "catastrophic" consequences for the EU. As she spoke, riot police and protesters fought in the streets of Gothenburg, half a mile from where the summit leaders were meeting. Demonstrators smashed shop windows and glass bus shelters and hurled cobble stones, chairs and bottles at the police. Three people were taken to hospital with gunshot wounds and about 30 others, including 10 police, were hurt in the worst riots in Swedish history. A planned dinner for the leaders at a restaurant in the city was cancelled because police told them they would not be safe outside a "ring of steel" erected around the summit centre. The Irish delegation headed by Bertie Ahern, the premier, had to move after their hotel was stoned. It was the second time in six months that an EU summit had been besieged by anarchists and anti-capitalist demonstrators protesting against the EU's growing global influence. At Nice in December riot police used tear gas against protesters. While condemning the riot, leaders acknowledged that there was growing disillusionment with the EU, highlighted by last week's "no" vote for the Nice Treaty in Ireland's referendum. Mrs Fontaine, a French conservative Euro-MP, used her address to the summit to warn the EU that it could be storing up further trouble by inadequate preparations for what she called "D-Day", when national currencies in the 12 eurozone countries are replaced by euro notes and coins. Small shopkeepers and their customers faced a mass of "tangible problems", she said. "We cannot afford to allow something of this magnitude to misfire. The effect on the European project at such a critical time would be catastrophic and political leaders would not escape the fall-out. They would be the focus of popular discontent." Mrs Fontaine criticised the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, which is in charge of the new currency, for rejecting calls for small amounts of euros to be made available to consumers a few days before Dec 31. Such a move would help to prepare 300 million Europeans for the "unknown world" of the single currency. Her warning coincided with a concerted attempt by the British Government to play down the prospects of an early referendum on scrapping the pound. Ministers urged business leaders and politicians to "cool it" and stressed that there would be no headlong rush into the euro. Their caution indicated that Tony Blair wants to see whether the introduction of the euro goes smoothly before trying to persuade the public of its merits. His decision to make public the Government's opposition to early euro membership was also aimed at quashing growing speculation on financial markets that his election victory had paved the way for scrapping the pound. Sterling has fallen sharply to a 15-year low against the US dollar. If it falls further, inflation could rise and pressure would increase on the Bank of England to raise interest rates. Mr Blair's stance disappointed other EU leaders when he met them for the first time since winning a second term, particularly as Pierre Moscovici, France's minister for Europe, had said earlier in the week that Labour's landslide victory should spur him to join the monetary union quickly and decisively. Jack Straw, attending his first summit as Foreign Secretary, criticised the frantic and breathless" way the euro debate was being conducted in Britain. He emphasised the Government's two-year timetable for assessment of the euro. Calling for a period of "calm reflection", he said: "Two years is 730 days. We have been in government in this new Parliament for seven days." Peter Hain, who was appointed Europe minister on Monday, used a series of interviews to urge caution. (Note: the former Home Secretary Jack Straw comes, ironically enough, from a Jewish broken home with 12 other brothers and sisters. Something else that you don't often hear about is the fact that the former sixties left winger has a brother on the national list of sex offenders. He was placed there after he violently assaulted a young teenage girl. Likewise Peter Hain was prominent in the early seventies leading anti-apartheid demonstrations against touring S. African rugby teams. Rixon) "We have got to cool the debate and do everything step by step very cautiously," he said. "We are not going to risk jobs by a headlong rush or by ruling [the euro] out for ever." With the opinion polls showing the public three to one against scrapping the pound, Mr Hain made clear that the Government would call a referendum only if it thought it could win. "We won't call a referendum that we expect to lose," he said. "That would not be in the interests of the British people," he told the Western Mail in Cardiff. Mr Blair made clear that both ministers were speaking with his full authority. He said the Government's policy towards the euro "had not changed and will not change". Suspicions that Labour was cooling on plans for a referendum grew last night when a senior Labour adviser said it could destabilise Mr Blair's second term. David Hill, the party's former director of communications, told the BBC's World Service: "I think there may not be a referendum because of the time scale and the judgment about whether or not the country is ready." www.electronictelegraph.com

To: IngotWeTrust who wrote (71907)	6/20/2001 12:28:30 AM
From: long-gone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116798

ISSUE 2215 Monday 18 June 2001 EU calls for an iron fist to crush the summit protesters By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Gothenburg GERMANY and France called yesterday for an urgent meeting of European Union members to discuss how to prevent a repeat of the rioting at the summit in Gothenburg. Germany's Interior Minister, Otto Schily, and his French counterpart, Daniel Vaillant, want to agree a "co-ordinated and hard response to this new form of extremist, cross-border criminality", Mr Schily's ministry said. In particular, measures need to be taken to protect next month's G8 summit in Genoa, it added. Mr Schily said: "Bands of criminals are systematically trying to disrupt political summit meetings." They were playing up to the media and exploiting the presence of peaceful demonstrators. He called on national security agencies to exchange more information on rioters and suggested that known troublemakers could be prevented from going abroad - an approach already used in several European countries to prevent hooligans from attending international football matches. Sweden mobilised 4,000 policemen, including mounted riot units and dog handlers, but struggled to quell rioting before and during the summit. The country's newspapers were asking yesterday how their mild-mannered police could have opened fire with live ammunition against their own citizens for the first time since 1931. Televised video film showed a young demonstrator being shot in the back, belying initial claims by the authorities that the shooting was purely an act of self-defence. The young Swede was in critical condition yesterday. Two other rioters were slightly injured in gunfire. A further 60 people, including 12 policemen, needed hospital treatment. The Swedish police chief, Sten Heckscher, said his forces had carried out their duties "in an absolutely fabulous way" and dismissed talk of resignations. But the Prime Minister, Goran Persson, called for an official inquiry into the handling of the two-day riot. He said the violence was a profound shock to his peace-loving country, which consigned its water-cannon and riot-control equipment to museums in the 1970s. He said: "It is something we have never seen in Sweden before." Today the government will start proceedings to change Sweden's laws so that police could deploy rubber bullets and water-cannon. Chancellor Gerhard Schroder said Germany would consider banning suspected rioters from travelling to summits abroad after evidence emerged that German-speaking extremists were leading the rampage on Friday. A total of 593 rioters were arrested, mostly from northern Europe, including 10 Britons. Many belonged to the pan-European Anti-Fascist Action and the anarchist group Direct Action. The Belgian government, which takes over the EU's machinery in July, said it would not permit mayhem to erupt at the forthcoming Ghent and Laekan summits later this year. Belgian officials said privately they were appalled by the failure of the Swedish police to anticipate the tactics of the rioters after the chaos caused by "summit-hopping" anti-globalists in Seattle, Prague, and Nice. The violence overshadowed the Gothenburg summit which fizzled out ignominiously over the weekend, bringing to a close 10 dreadful days for the cause of EU integration that began with the Irish rejection of the Nice Treaty. The original aim of the summit had been to kick-start the EU's stalled enlargement process by giving the former Communist states a fixed timetable for membership Instead, the EU found itself sliding backwards, struggling to resuscitate the Nice Treaty after the Irish people voted No by 54 to 46 per cent, rendering the accord null and void. In theory, new members can join without any new treaty but, in practice, the EU's creaking architecture cannot carry the weight of many more states without risking collapse. The final summit conclusions stipulate that there must be no changes to the treaty. Ireland is implicitly instructed to hold a second referendum. The statement has already caused fury among activists for the Irish No campaign and could ultimately precipitate a populist backlash. Leaders of the 12 candidate countries put on a brave face as the text was circulated but East European diplomats said the conclusions amounted to yet further EU stalling and raised fears that countries such as Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic would be kept in limbo for several more years. Sweden had hoped to crown its six-month EU presidency with agreement on a fixed timetable for enlargement but this was blocked by France and Germany. Instead, there was a rhetorical sweetener that the enlargement process was "irreversible". But the details told the real story, inveigling the 12 candidate states to work harder to develop an independent judiciary, civil service and media, and to provide more protection for their minorities. telegraph.co.uk