A meeting between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, scheduled to take place in London on Friday (4 December), has been cancelled amid ongoing tensions surrounding recent EU appointments. Both sides cited "diary constraints," with Mr Sarkozy also planning to lunch with the EU's newly appointed permanent president, Herman van Rompuy, on Friday. The French president recently proposed the London visit as a means of defusing angst over last week's appointment of Frenchman Michel Barnier to the important internal market portfolio inside the European Commission. The City of London greeted the job announcement with dismay. But subsequent comments from Mr Sarkozy that he had "out-manoeuvred" Mr Brown and that the appointment was a "triumph" for French ideas on financial regulation only added fuel to the fire and served to enrage Downing Street.
A meeting between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, scheduled to take place in London on Friday (4 December), has been cancelled amid ongoing tensions surrounding recent EU appointments.
Both sides cited "diary constraints," with Mr Sarkozy also planning to lunch with the EU's newly appointed permanent president, Herman van Rompuy, on Friday.
The French president recently proposed the London visit as a means of defusing angst over last week's appointment of Frenchman Michel Barnier to the important internal market portfolio inside the European Commission.
The City of London greeted the job announcement with dismay. But subsequent comments from Mr Sarkozy that he had "out-manoeuvred" Mr Brown and that the appointment was a "triumph" for French ideas on financial regulation only added fuel to the fire and served to enrage Downing Street.
Nah; would never happen; Downing Street would never be so crass, now would it? </sneer> Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
