Blair, Kohl promise to bury differences

THE British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, and the German Chancellor, Dr Kohl, promised yesterday to try to make a success of the forthcoming European summit in Amsterdam despite their differences.

Mr Blair was in Bonn for a two-hour meeting with the Chancellor on his way home from the international socialist conference in Malmo.

Dr Kohl said after their meeting that Mr Blair's decision to come to Bonn was a sign of the new Prime Minister's commitment to improving Anglo-German relations. "I know that this is an expression of a will, which I share, to ensure that relations between your country and ours should continue to be good and intensive in the future," he said.

The talks were dominated by EU issues and preparations for the Amsterdam summit but the two leaders also discussed the worsening situation in Bosnia and the future of the Eurofighter project.

British officials claimed that Dr Kohl expressed support for Britain's proposals for reducing unemployment within the EU by making the labour market more flexible. Britain's threat to ban beef imports from some EU countries was touched on during the discussions but the mood was generally sunny. "There was a meeting of minds," said a British government source.

Germany's extradition request for Ms Roisin McAliskey was the final item on the agenda due to be discussed by the two leaders but officials said that the issue was not, in fact, raised.

Earlier in Malmo", Mr Blair declared he was determined his government would not be a "hundred-day wonder, but a force for change which endures". He warned European socialist heads of government of the dangers of coming to power on a wave of enthusiasm, only to dash high expectations.

His message of caution was as much a warning to his own government, which he said was in its "honeymoon" phase, as to fellow socialist leaders in Europe.

The speech of the new French Prime Minister, Mr Jospin, to the congress was a marked contrast to Mr Blair's call for Old Left values to be dumped in favour of a switch to the ideas of New Labour. Mr Jospin stressed the dangers of market forces and made no criticism of the Old Left.

He warned: "Market forces - if there is no attempt to control them - will threaten our very idea of civilisation." He acknowledged that there were different views amongst European parties of the left, although he stressed that what united them was more important.

Mr Blair issued a strong new warning about the difficulties of a European single currency. He warned that neither the European single market nor the single currency could work unless EU member-states restructured their economies to make job creation an attainable objective.

The British Labour leader said he was "not satisfied with Europe" and reiterated that socialists must "modernise or die". Mr Jospin meanwhile vowed to get Europe "back on track" and stuck to his campaign promises of restoring social welfare at any cost.

The French Prime Minister, who presented a vastly more philosophical approach to Europe's problems than Mr Blair's concrete and pragmatic intentions, also prioritised employment but warned of the threats of capitalism.

"We have to modernise our welfare state, but we must protect our welfare state," he said.

"If we don't get a grip on [capitalistic] forces, and if we allow them to be unleashed wildly, they will threaten and jeopardise our understanding of civilisation or our values," he said, noting: "The market is not the only emblem of modernity."

Meanwhile, the British Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, dismissed claims that other socialist leaders felt Mr Blair was too right-wing. "We are different parties in different countries facing different economic and social problems."

He said left-wing governments had changed. "This is an age, yes, of idealism, but it is not an age of ideology. It is the ideals of the social democratic movement which puts people at the top of our agenda," Mr Cook said.