Delors says Major is 'man of the past'

in Brussels

MR JACQUES Delors, president of the EC Commission, last night branded

Mr John Major as the ''man of the past''.

Mr Delors's criticism is the latest exchange in an apparently growing

personal feud between him and Mr Major, who last week wrote a magazine

article rejecting some EC policies which Mr Delors strongly favours,

including a single currency and social provision.

This latest swipe at Mr Major came in answer to reporters' questions

and was, therefore, not calculated. But it will not help the Prime

Minister struggling to retain his authority within his own party just

before its annual conference next week, where he will face attacks by

Euro-sceptics.

They see him as too soft on the EC while critics in the Community,

including Mr Delors, regard him as a backslider because of his antipathy

to such policies as the social chapter and monetary union.

Mr Delors was talking after a day chairing negotiations with EC

employers and trade unions aimed at restoring lost European

competitiveness and helping employment and economic growth.

The group, which reached agreement on mounting a EC-wide ''social

dialogue'' to improve job creation without damaging social provision,

will report if possible before December, when the Delors White Paper on

growth and competitiveness is due to be published in time for the

Brussels summit.

This is assuming they can reach a common approach to questions

including training, works councils, working hours, and social costs.

Those represented at the talks included Unice, the European employers'

organisation, and the European unions represented by Mr Norman Willis,

recently retired general secretary of the TUC, who was critical of the

British Government's attitude to social provision.

Mr Delors, a critic of British hostility to social costs in business,

said he was entitled to his views just as Mr Major was to his. He was

pressed by a French journalist who suggested he sounded defensive.

Mr Delors said: ''I am not on the defensive. I just feel that if we

carry on the path we have taken for the moment, the Europe we will end

up with will be the Europe envisaged by Mr Major. It is not the sort of

Europe I want.

''I feel we are drifting in this way. We would have a great economic

area without any solidarity or political direction. If this is what you

want, it is not what I want or what was wanted by the [EC's] founding

fathers.''

As he left the meeting in Brussels, he was asked about his views of Mr

Major's article in The Economist, in which he talked about the ''stale''

agenda of monetary union and other policies.

Mr Delors said: ''Mr Major says he thinks I am a man of the past. But

I am still here. He is the man of the past.''

He was asked if too many Brussels directives, such as proposals for

works councils which Britain opposes, were getting in the way of

competitiveness and should be scrapped. Mr Delors said opposition was

based on ''purely ideological'' grounds.

''I will not cease in my efforts,'' he said. ''How can you involve

workers more closely in companies if they are not even entitled to be

consulted?''

Mr Delors, who is French, also took a sideswipe at some of his own

country's leaders, who have been making sympathetic sounds about

protectionism as a means of helping EC economies. Without mentioning

France, he said: ''Do not listen to the siren calls of the

protectionists.''