From: beascoea@colossus.cs.rpi.edu (Alex Beascoechea)
Subject: Edimburgh Deal. Mixed opinions.
Summary: Reacciones!
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 17:01:30 GMT


RTw  12/13 0829  DEAL ON EC FINANCES GETS MIXED REACTION IN SPAIN

    By Jude Webber
    MADRID, Dec 13, Reuter - Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez won more
money for the poorest European Community (EC) states at this weekend's Edinburgh
summit, but his hard-won deal got mixed reviews at home.
    "Spain got a trillion pesetas over seven years...when it was asking for two
and a half trillion over five," said a front-page article in the popular daily
El Mundo on Sunday.
    Ostensibly, Gonzalez got what he set out to achieve -- a doubling of EC aid
to the four poorest nations by 1999. Spain, Ireland, Portugal and Greece will
share a 15.15 billion Ecu ($18.8 billion) "cohesion fund" to help them catch up
with their richer partners ahead of planned economic and monetary union.
    But Spain, which went to Edinburgh vowing not to accept a substantial cut in
overall EC spending power over the decade, ended up agreeing to limit the
Community budget to 1.27 per cent of collective Gross National Product (PIB) by
1999. Spain had wanted the ceiling on spending set at 1.36 per cent.
    Spain's socialist premier had a blazing row with the EC's biggest paymaster,
Germany, accused the British presidency of "adding insult to injury" with one of
its compromise proposals and almost walked out of negotiations on Saturday.

     "It's not, by rights, what we were entitled to but they wouldn't give us
more," El Mundo, a habitual critic of the government, quoted Gonzalez as saying
of the final deal.
    Gonzalez said he was defending Spain's interests, not asking for charity,
and did not mind being in an 11-1 minority.
    His steadfastness earned him grudging praise from the conservative daily
ABC, which likened him to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and
of some political parties.
    The Basque nationalists, tipped as a potential coalition partner for
Gonzalez in a general election due next year, said Spain had "got what it could
under the circumstances."
    But the United Left coalition called Gonzalez's performance a pantomine.
"Gonzalez made a lot of noise and has got very little to show for it," spokesman
Antonio Romero said.
    Union leaders dismissed the budget deal as "timid" and said the summit
confirmed a division of the EC into rich and poor.
    Gonzalez, whose popularity is waning after 10 years in power, will appear in
parliament on Tuesday to explain the Edinburgh agreements. Most parties in Spain
are committed to the EC union goals and the Maastricht treaty was ratified by
both houses almost unanimously.

    A committed European unionist, Gonzalez has pushed through the toughest
budget in 20 years to help Spain catch up with the richer EC partners it would
dearly love to emulate.
    He has accepted two peseta devaluations within two months in the name of
European union while struggling to get a runaway public deficit under control.
    But rising unemployment and stubbornly high interest rates have helped erode
his support and opinion polls suggest he cannot now achieve an overall majority.
    Opposition Popular Party leader Jose Maria Aznar is certain to attack
Gonzalez strenuously over the EC finance deal.
    "He spends what he doesn't have and then goes to Edinburgh as a beggar,"
Aznar said on Saturday. "(The government) makes us behave like rich people here
and makes us be the poor relations when we go abroad...This government has
failed and it's time to take its place."
-- 
----------------- Alex Beascoechea -----------------
alex@ecse.rpi.edu beascoea@cs.rpi.edu beasca@rpi.e
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.spain