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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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Blair's farewell to EU?

Political symbolism sometimes means much more than the real politics. During Cuban missile crisis in 1962 the Soviet Union openly gave up its position in exchange of a secret American back off. The real exchange was reciprocal; the symbolic exchange was not. In America people called it a victory, in Moscow it was a disaster that cost Nikita Khrushchev his premiership. The EU summit that just ended represents such dissimilarity between real and symbolic politics. In reality both Britain and France made substantial concessions. Symbolically, concessions were made only by Britain. Hence people in London feel that their country is humiliated.

These reciprocal concessions were necessary in order to unblock the road toward EU enlargement and more financial transfers to the East. Without them the new EU budget would have been truncated and the new EU members would have been deceived in their hopes to catch up with their western neighbors. To be honest, even with such transfers this catching up will take decades. Without them however the wealth divide between West and East will be indefinitely perpetuating.

What are the consequences for the rich countries after this summit? France shines again after months of humiliating defeats for its government, first the failure of the EU constitutional referendum, and then the social unrest in November. Germany by playing with Paris and the new EU members has saved some billions needed for its own eastern reconstruction. Peripheral western countries like Spain and Italy have ganged up to protect their own diminishing financial packages. Britain has been left alone to heal its wounds and restore its national pride. It will be relatively easy for Britain to forget this humiliation if French promises materialize by 2008-2009.

If this isn't the case then we may expect the rise of even higher anti-European wave in Britain. Blair's political future isn't a matter of interest. What matters more is whether the next government will accept this humiliation as normality or will try to renegotiate this Waterloo in reverse. With not too many politicians in Britain ready to follow into the steps of Mrs. Thatcher the fight seems lost before it has begun. In a long run this may lead Britain to the only practical option it has at disposal, i.e. to opt out of EU, as it has already opted out of the Euro, or the Schengen area of free movement, of the Common Agricultural Policy, and of so many less important "common" European enterprises. It may sound impossible, but in fact the only impossible think is to have a humiliated Britain within EU for a long time.

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