‘Don’t come to a beefeating club if you’re vegetarian’

Matthew d'Ancona & David Rennie

05 July 2006

As he smooths his blue silk Hermès tie, smiling frequently, Barroso is the very image of unflappable good manners. But there is a sting in what he has to say — and it concerns Mr Blair’s likely successor.

‘I have a very good relationship with Tony Blair, I appreciate him very much, but I am sure I will be able to establish the same kind of relationship with any leader of Britain — in personal terms I don’t know, but in political terms,’ says Barroso.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer is ‘a very intelligent person’, he continues. ‘I have read what he has written and it is exactly our agenda on economic reform.’

With the diplomatic ritual over, the Commission president gets down to business — to delivering a warning in language that will undoubtedly have Gordon Brown spitting nails. ‘I am sure he wants to defend British interests, and it is obvious that the only way to do it is to be at the centre of the club. If I may use the phrase, this is a club — and Britain has a great tradition of clubs. And you cannot go to a beefeaters’ club and say you are a vegetarian. You have no influence.’

Zut alors — as they don’t say in the Treasury. This is surely the first time that our robust Chancellor has been accused of being a vegetarian. And there is more.

Because Britain has not given up the pound, Mr Brown does not attend the meetings of the 12 eurozone finance ministers, where the big decisions are taken. Instead, the Chancellor belongs to the outer ring of so-called ‘Ecofin’ ministers, allowed into the room only after the eurozone meetings are ended — sliding into his seat along with the Slovaks and Latvians and other finance ministers whose countries retain their national currencies. As a mere finance minister, the Chancellor is also excluded from meetings of the ‘European Council’, the supreme decision-making body of the EU where heads of government meet. Reflecting upon Mr Brown’s EU experience to date, Mr Barroso delivers a put-down as devastating in meaning as it is polite in form.