Polish minister calls Cameron ‘incompetent’
DAVID Cameron has been accused of having ‘f***** up’ his handling of Europe by a supposed key foreign ally.
In a leaked recording, the Polish foreign minister is heard accusing the Prime Minister of ‘incompetence’, while a fellow minister said the only way his government would agree to Mr Cameron’s demands for a return of powers from Brussels to London was ‘in return for a mountain of gold’.
The disclosures came amid deepening tensions between Britain and other EU leaders over the appointment of arch-federalist Jean-Claude Juncker, expected to be confirmed at a summit in Brussels later this week.
A Downing Street spokesman warned that if the EU would not embrace reform, it would ‘affect British voters’ views’ i n the planned in/out referendum. And she repeatedly refused to rule out the possibility that Mr Cameron may yet campaign for Britain to leave the union.
Poland had been hailed by Downing Street as a key ally in Mr Cameron’s mission to renegotiate a looser, more trade-based relationship with the EU before holding a referendum by the end of 2017. But in an expletive-laden transcript of a secretly recorded conversation, its foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski accused Mr Cameron of peddling ‘stupid propaganda’ to appease Eurosceptics.
It is acutely embarrassing, since he is close to Mr Cameron and other senior Tories, having been a member of Oxford University’s notorious Bullingdon Club at the same time as Boris Johnson.
He made his comments in talks
‘Stupidly tries to play the system’
with the former Polish finance minister Jacek Rostowski. The recording was leaked to a Polish news magazine yesterday.
Mr Rostowski is heard concluding: ‘I think it’ll be the case that [Cameron] will lose the elections. Great Britain will leave [the EU].’
Mr Sikorski says: ‘It’s either a very badly thought through move, or, not for the first time, a kind of incompetence in European affairs. Remember? He f***** up the fiscal pact. He f***** it up. Simple as that. He does not get it, he believes in the stupid propaganda, he stupidly tries to play the system.’
He goes on to criticise the Prime Minister’s attempts to appease British Eurosceptics, saying: ‘He should have said, f*** off, tried to convince people and isolate [the sceptics].’
In another conversation, a spokesman f or Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk claims he ‘f***** (Cameron) up good’ in a row over British plans to curb EU migrants’ welfare rights.
An embarrassed Mr Sikorski said his government had been ‘attacked by an organised criminal group’ that had leaked the recordings. Downing Street responded by insisting that the Prime Minister would continue to stand up for British interests and insist on an end to the ‘abuse’ of free movement.
The Prime Minister yesterday had what was described as a ‘full and frank discussion’ – diplomatic code for a full-scale row – with the President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy ahead of this week’s summit. Mr Cameron told Mr van Rompuy he would fight ‘until the end’ to prevent Mr Juncker becoming president of the European Commission.
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