Around the World

Around the World

British group defends E.U. membership

But with an eye on general elections in the next couple of years, the group calling itself a "patriotic alliance" stopped short of urging Britain to adopt Europe's common currency, the euro, which had been the original intention of the "Britain in Europe" campaign.

The alliance brought together members of Blair's Labor government and Conservative heavyweights at odds with their own party leader, William Hague, who has taken a hard line against Europe. Hague attacked the campaign in yesterday's edition of The Times of London as a front for "abolishing the pound."

Blair said their goal was to rebut the "shrill clamor" of Euroskeptics who claim that membership in the EU had damaged the British economy and relations with the United States, and would eventually drive the country into a federal superstate.

He argued that a strong Britain can help its European neighbors with economic reforms; that more than half of Britain's trade is with Europe; and that 3.5 million British jobs depend on that trade.

"Once in each generation the case for Britain in Europe needs to be remade," Blair said, recalling the 1975 cross-party coalition that persuaded the British public to vote in favor of membership of what was then called the European Economic Community. "To quit Europe would be an act of economic mutilation."

Speaking before an audience packed with political and business leaders, Blair was joined by senior members of his Labor government, new Liberal Democratic Party leader Charles Kennedy, and former Tory government ministers Michael Heseltine and Kenneth Clarke.

Heseltine took on Hague and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who argued at last week's Conservative Party convention in Blackpool that all of Britain's problems in the last century stemmed from Europe.

"What happens in Europe is inseparable from what happens to our own trade, employment, investment and industry," Heseltine said.

"I say with no disrespect to our neighbors, if we aren't there, they will fix the rules their way. I want to fix the rules our way. You cannot wield a handbag from an empty chair," he said in obvious reference to Thatcher's famous accouterments.

He and Clarke denied accusations from Tory leaders that they were traitors to their party, saying they planned to vote Conservative in the next general election. But their participation drew the battle lines in any future vote on whether Britain should adopt the common currency.

Blair has promised a referendum on the euro but not before the next election. Public sentiment is running against adopting the common currency and, sensing this, Hague has decided to make it a central issue of the next election.

"No one can doubt that most people in this country do not want to abolish the pound. Keeping the pound is the common ground of British politics; but only the Conservative Party speaks for it," Hague wrote in The Times of London.

Yesterday, Blair mentioned the euro just once, sticking to his usual cautious message that Britain would contemplate joining if all the necessary economic conditions were met in the 11-country euro zone.

"Everybody who has joined this campaign is in favor of the single currency in principle. None of us are saying we should join now," Clarke said to nods from Blair.

Clarke's and Heseltine's participation in the campaign came a day after two other Conservative leaders attacked Hague's Europe position. Former Prime Minister John Major said the new stance was "absurd and crazy" and former party chairman Chris Patten said he feared the party was fast becoming unelectable due to its hostility to Europe.

The issue of Britain's relationship with Europe has long divided the Conservative Party and contributed to its overwhelming defeat in the 1997 election.

Serb opposition calls for early election

Adversaries of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic don't expect him to accept their demands, which include international supervision and other measures to ensure that any vote is free and fair, said Slobodan Vuksanovic, vice president of the Democratic Party.

But by bringing charismatic leader Vuk Draskovic into the opposition fold, yesterday's agreement is a crucial step forward for a pro-democracy movement that has faltered badly in recent weeks.

Draskovic, head of the Serbian Renewal Movement, has argued all along that demonstrations wouldn't work and could even backfire by giving Milosevic an excuse to use force.

"I don't think the (ruling) Socialist Party will accept our demands," Vuksanovic said in an interview Thursday. "But anyway, we have to ask for normal and fair conditions for elections.

"In this way, we can motivate our citizens to demonstrate, because we need clear and realistic aims," he added. "When we demand, for instance, the resignation of Mr. Milosevic, no one believes that he will resign. And that is why people are not motivated."

Milosevic's Socialist Party and its allies offered weeks ago to hold early elections but on their own terms, which the opposition believes would allow Milosevic to rig the results.

The opposition will ask for talks with authorities as soon as possible to discuss early elections, Vuk Obradovic, head of the Social Democracy Party, said yesterday.

The Yugoslav government isn't required to hold federal and local elections until next spring. Serbia, the dominant of Yugoslavia's two republics, isn't scheduled to have elections until 2001.

The current round of nightly demonstrations, which the Alliance for Change, an opposition coalition, began more than three weeks ago, should be called off to give Milosevic time to weigh his response, Vuksanovic said. "They are a waste of energy right now," added Vuksanovic.

Although public opinion polls suggest that the opposition would be a serious threat in a free and fair election, Milosevic and his allies have deftly manipulated a complex electoral system to maintain power.

That is why the opposition's demands include a large reduction in the number of electoral districts, from 24 in the last vote to no more than nine, and access to the state-run media, which Milosevic uses as a powerful propaganda machine.

While opposition leaders have been bickering among themselves and reminding people how bad things are in Yugoslavia, Milosevic has tried to focus attention on surprisingly quick repairs to bridges and other infrastructure destroyed last spring by NATO airstrikes.

On Monday, at the reopening of a bombed railway station in the southern city of Leskovac, Milosevic called opposition leaders "cowards, blackmailers and lackeys" of NATO and accused them of trying to provoke a civil war.

If citizens believe there are leaders "who could secure a better life for the majority of people more quickly," Milosevic added, they should "elect them at the next elections."

10-15-99