France returns to EU centre stage
By Tony Barber in Brussels
Financial Times Published: December 30 2007 17:48 | Last updated: December 30 2007 17:48
In the Chinese zodiac calendar, 2008 is the Year of the Rat. In the European Union, 2008 is shaping up to be the year of the French.
France¹s six-month EU presidency, its first since 2000, will not begin until July 1. But already the bloc¹s other 26 member states are anticipating France¹s occupation of the hot seat with uncommon excitement.
³The French presidency will be highly ambitious. Budget reform, agriculture, trade, energy security, climate change, immigration, defence you name it, as long as there¹s something to be done, the French will do it,² says a Brussels-based ambassador.
Long before July, France¹s experienced, prefectural shadow will lie over Slovenia, an EU ³new boy² that on January 1 will become the first former communist country to hold the bloc¹s rotating presidency.
Having joined the EU only in 2004, Slovenia in its six-month term will be keen to prove its competence but happy to take French advice. ³They accept it. They¹re almost relieved. They are uncertain about their capabilities,² one diplomat says.
With French initiatives set to dominate the year, admiration for the fresh sense of purpose in Paris is mixed in some EU capitals with wariness about the likely tone and direction of policies under Nicolas Sarkozy, the restlessly energetic French president.
Mr Sarkozy¹s jabs at the European Central Bank¹s independence and his vision of a ³Mediterranean Union² connecting EU and non-EU countries in southern Europe have gone down poorly in Germany and other northern states.
The personal relationship between Mr Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, Germany¹s chancellor, lacks natural warmth, according to EU officials and diplomats who have seen them at work together.
³She is a scientist; she likes details. She is calm. She is exactly the opposite of him. He is a voluntarist, highly strung and emotional. It will take a bit of time to find their own chemistry and way of functioning together,² an EU official says.
In some countries, Mr Sarkozy¹s emphasis on the EU¹s right to economic self-protection in the age of globalisation and his outspoken views on Muslim immigration into Europe induce a certain nervousness.
³The peoples of Europe are going through a profound identity crisis,² Mr Sarkozy told the European parliament last month. ³It is a crisis linked to the globalisation and commercialisation of the world.² However, officials familiar with the thinking of José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, say he is impressed with Mr Sarkozy.
³Sarkozy has brought a new French enthusiasm for Europe. He¹s formulating initiatives. It¹s very important. There are certain points that one can and must discuss but overall the attitude is positive,² says one senior official.
In certain respects, 2008 will mark the year when France completes its return to the front centre of Europe¹s stage, after its wounded withdrawal to the wings when French voters rejected the now-abandoned EU constitutional treaty on May 29 2005.
Mr Sarkozy¹s presidential election victory last May launched the process by which France has rebuilt its influence in EU affairs. Now some experts in Brussels, both supporters and occasional critics of French policies, say Mr Sarkozy has a great chance to seize the initiative in 2008.
Of the leaders of the EU¹s four big countries, Mr Sarkozy will be politically the strongest, they say. Mrs Merkel will be increasingly hamstrung by feuds in her Christian Democrat-Social Democrat coalition and by the approach to Germany¹s next federal election, due in 2009.
Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, will be engaged in a long struggle to assert his authority and to prepare for the next British election, probably in 2009. Romano Prodi, Italy¹s premier, will as ever lead a weak and divided government.
Moreover, with Mr Barroso adjusting his free-market instincts as he aims for re-election as Commission president in 2009, and with economic reformers on the defensive in Germany, Mr Sarkozy¹s message of an ambitious state-guided modernisation that protects the European ³social model² appears to have caught the emerging spirit of the age.
³The Anglo-Saxon model that was dominant a year ago is being pushed aside by the Rhineland model and Club Med,² says one EU ambassador, referring to two versions of capitalism traditionally practised by France, Germany and southern European countries.