The Netherlands have blocked an EU trade deal with Serbia during the EU Council meeting yesterday.
A Serbian colleague of mine is furious, and I should not quote him because it wouldn't make things better. He's seeing yesterday's result from the side of Serbian citizens, and the rejected deal leaves them behind due to EU internal problems (which is the case if just one country opposes), something hardly understandable outside the Union's borders.
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4 comments:
Strangely, the EU Observer fails to mention Belgium as the other country that opposed the trade deal.
Do you have a source? All the sources I found that contained the opposition by Belgium were pre-Council reports; maybe "les Belges" dropped their opposition during negotiations?
I don't remember the original news article where I read this, but I'm pretty sure this is it (17/09/08):
http://www.nisnews.nl/public/170908_3.htm
OTOH, the Observer now reports (17/09/08) on the status of Belgium as "neutral" despite its initial stance of solidarity with the Dutch:
http://euobserver.com/9/26753
I think this is a very bad policy from the Netherlands and it also show the EU very weak. To use a national veto in such an international affair is very encouraging for any regional powers who think they can win over one country in order to make a mess in Europe.
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