British PM Brown hopes to shake off EU treaty criticism

0 Comments | AFP, December, 2007

BRUSSELS (AFP) — British Prime Minister Gordon Brown attended his first Brussels EU summit on Friday, seeking to shake off criticism of his absence at the signing of the bloc's key reform treaty.

Brown, who received flak in the British press for his clumsy European diplomacy -- one week after boycotting an EU-Africa summit -- did not mention his absence from the grand ceremony in Lisbon, as he spoke to reporters ahead of the Brussels meeting.

However the British press was joined by some European voices in decrying what one diplomat dubbed his "semi-detached" attitude to Europe.

"This was an unnecessary slight to the other leaders," said Graham Watson, head of the European Parliament's liberal group of lawmakers.

Brown's spokesman dismissed the...