Pave: Qui est à blâmer ? : le traité de Lisbonne Redux

Le jour 405 de Sarko

Ireland's debate focused on abortion, euthanasia, taxation, the WTO, agriculture. You can't blame that on Mr Barroso [European Commission president, an appointed, not an elected, office]. Choose someone else. Mandelson, for example.

One child dies every 30 seconds because they are hungry, and we should go and negotiate within the WTO framework a 20 per cent cut* in European agricultural production? Honestly, there is one person who is of that opinion – that's Mr Mandelson.

If we want to deepen the Irish crisis, all we have to do is add to it by continuing on a totally unbalanced agreement at the WTO. That is really counterproductive.

Sarko,
explaining how an incomprehensible treaty,
expropriating the perogatives of Irish sovereignty,
was banjaxed by agricultural reform
(infra)

Let's hold up and reflect a minute. [We hold up. We reflect.] It is a sure bet that Mr. Mandelson is not pushing to reduce agricultural production but agricultural subsidies. For examples, props for profit-based agro-businesses and royal absentees and distilling wine lakes into industrial alcohol and biofuel. Sarko pretends not to know the difference.

One child dies every 30 seconds because they are hungry...

Where do such numbers come from? It is suspiciously identical to the UNICEF 30-second mortality attributed to malaria. Sarko also knows children do not die because they are hungry, they die, in this context, because they starve. Yet, we searched the whole of UNICEF's The State of the World’s Children 2008 report without once encountering Sarko's grim claim. Although implicated in half of under-5 child mortalities, the report's U5MR chart (Figure 1.8, p.8) doesn't even include undernutrition, much less the more extreme starvation, in its attributable causes of death.

Still, such a sensational, if dubious, claim paints blood on Mr. Mandelson's hands.

Not surprisiingly, Mr. Mandelson takes exception.

FURY AS MANDELSON IS MADE SCAPEGOAT
FOR IRISH 'NO' VOTE

BRUSSELS June 21, 2008 (Independent) - The French President declared that Mr Mandelson [European Commissioner for External Trade] was partly responsible for the "no" vote in last week's Irish referendum because he had upset Irish farmers by supporting cuts in agricultural production during talks on a new world trade deal.

... However, polling for the European Commission published yesterday suggested the trade talks played little part in the referendum. The main reasons for voting "no" were a lack of information about the treaty, cited by 22 per cent of its opponents, and a desire to protect Irish identity (12 per cent).

Mr Mandelson hit back in a round of interviews, insisting that he was merely carrying out the policy of EU leaders, including the French President, in the long-stalled trade talks:

My shoulders are broad enough and my skin thick enough to take this. France has a particular national position [in the talks] which I have to take into account but I cannot be governed by.

Mr Mandelson said M. Sarkozy had "tactfully and diplomatically" chosen to blame him rather than Mr Barroso. He had been reassured that M. Sarkozy:

...has nothing against me personally.

Well, it's nice to know there's nothing personal in the French publicly shiving Mr. Mandelson. Just Sarko giving Mr. Barroso a pass by way of sticking Mr. Mandelson.

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* Here it is reported a 21% cut.

PFFT (What is this?): Nothing personal 1½ | Rayonnement français 0