Word: chirac
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...European constitution confirmed in the May 29 referendum? The situation is getting increasingly tense: one poll result released last week showed 55% of those questioned opposing the constitution; another showed 53% voting no, even though a plurality thought that yes would win in the end. Now President Jacques Chirac has been accused of trying to exercise improper control. After his terse exchanges with European Commission President José Manuel Barroso last month over a proposed directive to liberalize the European Union's service sector, Barroso was suddenly disinvited from a scheduled April 21 appearance on 100 Minutes for Convincing...
...Rebate Debate Can the European Union avoid another damaging bout of budget paralysis? That's the big question following last week's E.U. summit in Brussels, at which French President Jacques Chirac questioned why Britain should continue to receive a €4 billion annual rebate on its payments. In 1984, then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher won the rebate for Britain by demanding: "I want my money back", and holding up E.U. business for months until she got it. E.U. leaders are supposed to fix a new budget framework this year for 2007-2013, and already there's disagreement over whether...
...competition, advocates of the directive say it will create far more jobs than it eliminates. But with many countries preparing to hold a referendum this year on the new E.U. constitution, politicians fear that any controversial proposals coming out of Brussels could jeopardize a yes vote. French President Jacques Chirac last week phoned European Commission President José Manuel Barroso to chastise him about the "unacceptable" services directive and his continuing public support...
...Bush and his European hosts last week would have been a European desire to sell arms and an American determination to stop them from doing so? Yet so it proved. Not even a shared dinner of lobster risotto and truffle sauce could get Bush and his French counterpart Jacques Chirac (who in this case speaks for Europe old and new) to agree on the European Union's plan to lift its embargo on supplying defense technology to China, imposed after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. Bush wants the embargo to stay, lest European goods one day be used against...
...supporters across the political spectrum believe they're losing support because voters wrongly think the referendum is linked to Turkish E.U. membership (widely opposed in France) or officially surrenders social protections to the free market (as some politicians complain). Others may simply want to punish Raffarin and President Jacques Chirac for unpopular domestic policies like cutting civil-service jobs and trimming social benefits. The Dutch are facing a similarly volatile poll. Most people say they intend to vote on June 1, but a large chunk of the electorate is undecided - and the ranks of the yes camp are thinning...