SÍTIO DO NÃO

Espero que o mais breve possível.

Oh, dúvida!
"O SÍTIO DO (NÃO REGRESSA EM BREVE)"
ou
"O (SÍTIO DO NÃO) REGRESSA EM BREVE"?
:-)

Felizmente os sítios do não já podem ir de férias de vez em quando...porque há cada vez mais!

Ver a sondagem do Expresso deste fim de semana alargado.

Imprensa 9 e 10 de Junho

09.06.05
EXPRESSO

«NÃO e SIM empatados

Lisboa e Porto votam contra Tratado

SE O REFERENDO ao Tratado Constitucional Europeu em Portugal fosse hoje, tudo poderia acontecer. Numa simulação do referendo realizada esta semana pela Eurosondagem para o EXPRESSO, com voto secreto em urna, o resultado foi um empate técnico: 50,8% dos portugueses disseram «Sim» ao Tratado e 49,2% votaram «Não». Curiosamente, o «Não» ganhou nas áreas metropolitanas de Lisboa (52,4%) e do Porto (50,9%) e no Alentejo e Algarve (53,9%). O «Sim» ganhou a Norte do Tejo, sendo o eleitorado do Centro do país claramente o mais favorável ao Tratado (55,5%)...»

(http://semanal.expresso.clix.pt/capa/default.asp)

*

10.06.05
Diário de Notícias.

«Referendo abre brechas no PSD

Reunião do grupo parlamentar marcada por críticas. Passos Coelho contra tratado europa.

Deputados do PSD querem que Marques Mendes se antecipe ao Conselho Europeu de 16 e 17

A reunião do grupo parlamentar do PSD de ontem ficou marcada por críticas de vários deputados à condução política da direcção do partido em dossiers como o referendo europeu, o apoio ao projecto do Bloco de Esquerda de levantamento do sigilo bancário e a falta de solidariedade com o anterior Governo invocada por santanistas.

Deputados como José Freire Antunes, Paulo Rangel e Paulo Pereira Coelho puseram em causa a posição do PSD depois dos "nãos" em França e na Holanda, tendo o primeiro sido mesmo bastante duro. Freire Antunes defendeu a possibilidade de o próximo Conselho Europeu, a 16 e 17 de Junho, em Bruxelas, poder "matar" o Tratado Constitucional, pelo que apelou a que Marques Mendes para acabar com o que terá definido como "um tacticismo cego". O deputado-historiador será também contra os que definem a revisão constitucional extraordinária - que permitiu a simultaneidade de eleições e referendo - como a primeira vitória política de Marques Mendes e terá dito que o partido devia antecipar uma nova posição sobre o tratado. Contactado pelo DN, o deputado acrescentou só que "a posição do PSD nesta matéria é conhecida."

Estas críticas surgiram apenas algumas horas depois de um vice-presidente do PSD, Pedro Passos Coelho, ter feito uma intervenção considerada "fortíssima" no Conselho Nacional que acabou na madrugada de ontem. Passos Coelho terá revelado ter bastantes reticências a este tratado e considerado que o PSD não deve insistir na realização do referendo, sob pena de ser ultrapassado pelo que for decidido em Bruxelas. O DN tentou obter a reacção de Passos Coelho a esta informação, o que não foi possível até ao fecho da edição...»

(http://dn.sapo.pt/2005/06/10/nacional/referendo_abre_brechas_psd.html)

*

10.06.05
Guardian

«Blair rebuffs Chirac call to give ground on EU rebate

Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac were last night involved in a war of words over Britain's £3bn EU budget rebate after the French president called on "our English friends" to give ground.
In an attempt to deflect political pressure away from the Franco-Dutch referendum noes ahead of next week's European summit, the French president said: "The time has come for our English friends to understand that they have to make a gesture of solidarity for Europe."
But Mr Blair emerged from a private meeting with the chancellor, Gordon Brown, convinced not only that Britain should stand firm, but increase the counter-pressure on France and its budget rebate ally, Luxembourg.
The prime minister used a pre-summit meeting at No 10 with the Danish prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, to remind Paris that Britain had been "making a gesture" to France for decades.

Britain's net contribution to EU funds is two-and-a-half times that of its neighbour, he declared.

"Without the rebate, it would have been 15 times as much as France. That is our gesture. The reason why the rebate exists is because otherwise there would be this quite unfair proportion of British contribution. The reason for the unfairness is because the spending of Europe is so geared to the common agricultural policy" - a policy, he added, well past its sell-by date.

With France believing it will face little pressure next week to give up more of its generous agricultural subsidies, Mr Chirac flatly rejected any gesture himself. "We cannot accept a reduction of direct aid to French farmers," he said.

Mr Chirac, battered by his referendum rebuff and the sacking of his prime minister, can not afford to take the blame for the stalled constitution, least of all from Britain, which many French voters see as Europe's Trojan horse for "Anglo-Saxon" free market policies.

France, which resents the British rebate secured by Margaret Thatcher at the Fontainebleau EU summit in 1984, believes it is in a strong position. Tactically isolated by Luxembourg's raising of the rebate issue, Britain is facing pressure on a number of fronts:

Hopes of making the size of the EU's overall budget the main point of negotiations at the summit started to fall apart at the weekend. France and Germany indicated that they were prepared to allow the budget to grow to 1.06% of EU income - Britain wants it to stay at 1%.

There is growing support for a Luxembourg compromise which would freeze the rebate from 2007 at €4.6bn (about £3.1bn) and then "set it on a downward path".

Support is growing for the Netherlands - the EU's largest contributor per capita. This puts pressure on Britain, which supports a fairer deal for the Netherlands.

The 10 poorer countries which joined the EU last year say it is unfair that they have to contribute to a rebate for a rich country.

Britain acknowledges that the political climate has changed but insists the rebate is "fully justified".

Mr Blair told MPs on Wednesday he would not negotiate the rebate away - carefully chosen words that left the door open to negotiations.

But ministers are prepared to use the UK veto. They are furious with Mr Chirac who should, they believe, be answering questions after his failure to persuade French voters to support the EU constitution.»

(http://politics.guardian.co.uk/eu/story/0,9061,1503495,00.html#article_continue)

(cont.)

10.06.05
Guardian

Blair sets conditions for EU rebate deal

Tony Blair today hinted that some form of compromise over Britain's unique £3bn EU rebate could be "open to debate" - but only if the entire EU budget, including the controversial common agricultural policy, was up for renegotiation.
With the prime minister and the French president, Jacques Chirac, yesterday exchanging diplomatic blows over the contentious rebate, first negotiated by Margaret Thatcher, both Mr Blair and the chancellor, Gordon Brown, again stressed today they were willing to use the UK veto to keep it.

However, during talks at Downing Street with a delegation from the European parliament, Mr Blair suggested that if EU leaders agreed to rethink the entire budget "to equip Europe for the 21st century", then "everything is open to debate".
EU leaders meet in Brussels next Thursday for showdown talks on the 2007-13 budget, with the UK largely isolated over it's unique £3bn annual clawback - especially since the accession of 10 largely poor countries to the EU last year.

Speaking in Downing Street next to the president of the European parliament, Josep Borrell, Mr Blair said: "In order to get a proper deal on financing you have got to look at all the aspects of the European budget.

"If you have a fundamental review of how Europe spends its money, then of course everything then is open to debate. What is not open to debate is a situation where you go back to Britain being penalised."

Mr Blair said that when it came to the European council in a week's time in Brussels, "I am going in saying yes, let us indeed have a fundamental debate about the future of Europe and the future of European financing. But we are not going to just take one issue out and debate that. We will debate everything."

This morning, after his meeting with a delegation of MEPs from the European parliament, the PM went on the offensive, stressing: "The rebate is there for a reason - to correct what would otherwise be an unfair distribution of EU money.

"Forty percent of the [EU] budget goes on CAP [the common agricultural policy' - which has 5% of the population and less than 2% of the output of the EU."

Britain is virtually isolated in Europe over the rebate question, and is under pressure to acquiesce to a compromise plan under the current Luxembourg presidency of the EU to freeze the rebate for the upcoming 2007-13 period.

Yesterday President Chirac called for a "gesture of solidarity" from Britain as the difficult negotiations head to a climax at next week's meeting.

An angry Mr Blair picked up on the word "gesture" at a No 10 press conference yesterday, saying, in unusually blunt terms: "Britain has been making a gesture, because over the past 10 years, even with the British rebate, we have been making a contribution into Europe two and half times that of France.

"Without the rebate, it would have been 15 times as much as France. That is our gesture."

Today the chancellor backed up Mr Blair, telling BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We are not going to negotiate away the rebate. That is simply not up for negotiation.

"We have said very clearly that not only is the rebate justified, but if in the national interest it was necessary to do so, we would have to use our veto."

Where diplomatic room for manoeuvre exists is between Britain negotiating away the entire rebate, or agreeing to a compromise freezing it in return for reform of the CAP and an overall reduction in the increase of the EU budget.

However, Mr Chirac and the German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder have already said that significant changes in the CAP are not on the table for the upcoming 2007-2013 budget.

As Anglo-French relations strained again over the impasse, Mr Brown barely concealed his disdain for the Mr Chirac's position, telling the BBC that to concentrate on the British rebate was to "wish away the problems Europe must face up to".

He said:" When one country for one item of policy is taking up such a huge share of the European Union budget, then there are bigger issues to discuss before you can reach a settlement than simply discussing, as one or two countries want to do, the British rebate.

"The issue about Europe is not simply the budget. Everybody looking at the rejection of the constitution by the Netherlands and France; anybody looking at the 9-10% unemployment we have got in Europe - 20 million people unemployed; and then anyone looking, as I have done, from China's perspective at the challenges of globalisation facing Europe ... knows that these are the problems that Europe must face up to.

Lord Kinnock, the former European commission vice-president, backed Mr Blair's determination to hold out over the rebate.

Attacking Mr Chirac for discrediting the EU by playing a "diversionary game", he said it was a "moral outrage" that poor countries were having to support such a system.

"The best way to assist the poorest countries in the European Union is to profoundly and fundamentally change the common agricultural policy," he said.

"Unless and until that is done, there can be no reason for Britain relinquishing ... the rebate."

Mr Blair's suggestion that "everything is open to debate", prompted the Tories to demand an assurance the rebate "should remain, should not be frozen, and the current formula for determining the amount should stay exactly as it is".

(http://politics.guardian.co.uk/eu/story/0,9061,1503755,00.html)

UNS a seguir aos outros (recentemente foi Clara Ferreira Alves e Miguel Sousa Tavares), muitos comentadores, em termos profundamente irritantes, insistem em chamar estúpidos aos franceses e aos holandeses que responderam da forma que se sabe à pergunta SIM-ou-NÃO que lhes colocaram.

O certo é que me fazem recordar uma cena a que em tempos assisti:

Num café de Lisboa, enquanto eu e outras pessoas esperávamos para ser atendidos, o dono do estabelecimento estava a ser muito violento para com um pedinte, expulsando-o dali para fora.

«O que desejam?» - perguntou-nos depois, ainda com maus modos.

E foi então que o colega de trabalho que estava comigo (homem mais velho e bastante vivido) respondeu, com o seu ar gingão de Campo de Ourique:

«Se não me baterem, quero um café»
--
(CMRibeiro)