BRUSSELS: For a deal that's supposed to be a cinch, France's return to NATO's integrated military command - and its symbolic goodbye to a tired role as reflex antagonist to the United States - has a particularity: With two months to go before the alliance's chiefs are scheduled to mark the event at a summit meeting in Strasbourg on April 3 and 4, Nicolas Sarkozy still has not made a final decision to set it in motion. "There's no crisis," a Brussels diplomat said last week, suggesting that the French could wait until just before the summit meeting without anyone getting (massively) unnerved. Reality would seem to insist the official confirmation comes locked into significant, broader circumstances that don't allow for bad surprises: President Barack Obama's first trip to Europe, including a G-20 meeting of the world's major economic players in London on April 2, and a U.S-European Union summit meeting, possibly in Prague, culminates at the NATO gathering. But for Sarkozy, whose opponents at home say he has made an empty bargain, giving away a chunk of French independence for next to no profit, the situation has changed.
BRUSSELS: For a deal that's supposed to be a cinch, France's return to NATO's integrated military command - and its symbolic goodbye to a tired role as reflex antagonist to the United States - has a particularity:
With two months to go before the alliance's chiefs are scheduled to mark the event at a summit meeting in Strasbourg on April 3 and 4, Nicolas Sarkozy still has not made a final decision to set it in motion.
"There's no crisis," a Brussels diplomat said last week, suggesting that the French could wait until just before the summit meeting without anyone getting (massively) unnerved.
Reality would seem to insist the official confirmation comes locked into significant, broader circumstances that don't allow for bad surprises: President Barack Obama's first trip to Europe, including a G-20 meeting of the world's major economic players in London on April 2, and a U.S-European Union summit meeting, possibly in Prague, culminates at the NATO gathering.
But for Sarkozy, whose opponents at home say he has made an empty bargain, giving away a chunk of French independence for next to no profit, the situation has changed.
goodbye to a tired role as reflex antagonist to the United States
The hacks who write this stuff never tire...
Frank Delaney ~ Ireland
[...] Deshalb wundere ich mich, was bei CDU und CSU an Menschenrechtsverachtung, aber auch an Undankbarkeit gezeigt wird. Schäuble argumentiert: Die Amerikaner haben diese Leute entführt und inhaftiert, also müssen sie dieses Problem auch selber lösen. Ich will einmal daran erinnern: Nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg, den Deutschland angefangen hat, hat Deutschland durch die USA und andere Länder massive Hilfe erfahren. Ich erinnere nur an den Marshallplan, die Care-Pakete, die Berliner Luftbrücke. Wie kann man da heute sagen, die USA sollen das Problem selber lösen.
So the EVEN the green party head says, we shall take people from Guantanamo, BECAUSE we have to be grateful. Yeah, wasn't France freed by the US in WW II? Shouldn't France therefore sell its soul to the US at least the next 7 generations (maybe extended if needed, just like the copyright of Disney figures), too? Der Amerikaner ist die Orchidee unter den MenschenVolker Pispers
