Intelligence

France’s heir apparent plots EU revolution

France’s heir apparent plots EU revolution - Sunday Times - Times Online

Matthew Campbell, Paris
HE sometimes behaves as though he were already lord of the Elysée Palace. Nicolas Sarkozy, the French interior minister hoping to be elected president in 2007, is not only dreaming about changes in France. He is also plotting the reorganisation of Europe.

While President Jacques Chirac and most other French politicians are engaged in nothing more taxing than preparations for their summer holidays, Sarkozy, a diminutive figure in constant motion, is planning meetings with Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, and with Tony Blair.

He held talks in Madrid on July 15 with Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the socialist Spanish prime minister, and on Tuesday in Paris with Angela Merkel, the conservative German opposition leader who is hoping to be elected chancellor in September. This was an impressive flurry of diplomacy considering that Sarkozy is not a foreign minister, let alone head of state.

However, opinion polls show him to be the most popular politician in France and he would thrash any Socialist opponent in 2007. No wonder he is practising being president.

Yet a serious initiative is emerging. Sarkozy is hoping, as president, to form an alliance of five countries to replace the traditional Franco-German duo in writing the next chapter of European integration.

He is not the only one to see things developing that way. In the aftershock of the French and Dutch voters’ rejection of the proposed European constitution earlier this year, a consensus is developing that new thinking is needed.

At the forefront of this movement is Britain, which holds the European Union presidency until December and has pressed for an overhaul of EU spending, arguing that it is wrong to invest so much in agriculture when it accounts for a relatively small part of economic activity.

Sarkozy and Merkel may agree with that, but Chirac is virulently opposed to tinkering with a system that brings big benefits to French farmers, even though Britain offered to discuss cuts to its budget rebate.The resulting deadlock has prevented agreement on a budget for the next seven-year period.

Britain is not alone in this battle. Zapatero, once considered one of Chirac’s closest allies, has signalled a pragmatic streak by agreeing to the meeting with Sarkozy and by not siding with France in the battle over the budget at the last summit in Brussels. He also invited Blair to holiday in Spain.

Chirac is expected to lose an even more important ally in the German elections on September 18. Gerhard Schröder, the chancellor with whom Chirac has dinner each month, is likely to be defeated by Merkel.

“It could be the end of the Franco-German alliance in its present form,” said a European diplomat. “But it already had become a toothless concept.”

In an enlarged Europe, the French and German leaders have lost the ability to steamroller smaller countries into submission. If Sarkozy gets his way, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain may usurp the Franco-German role.

Merkel seemed to enjoy the status of leader-in-waiting as she was escorted about Paris on Tuesday by police on motorcycles, a courtesy usually extended only to heads of state.

A polite and formal encounter with Chirac emphasised the extent to which the French leader will be isolated if Merkel takes over. She disapproves of his view of Europe as a counterweight to American power; of his refusal to contemplate cuts in agicultural subsidies in exchange for cuts in the British rebate; and of his defence of the exclusiveness of the Franco-German alliance.

Merkel said she believed that France and Germany must not “act above the heads” of small countries, a sentiment echoed by a beaming Sarkozy who, in contrast to an unusually formal Chirac, kissed Merkel on either cheek and called her by her first name. He said the Franco-German partnership would continue but must “not be exclusive of our friendships and working relationships with others, primarily the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy”.

A spokesman for Sarkozy said that a meeting with Blair had been pencilled in for September and the two men already knew and admired each other.

Their discussions are bound to infuriate Chirac, whom Sarkozy, the son of a Hungarian immigrant, recently compared with Louis XVI.

Whether or not he resembles a monarch on the eve of a popular uprising, Chirac seemed to focus on peripheral matters last week by jetting off for a meeting with Marc Ravalomanana, the president of Madagascar.

The sky was blue, the welcome warm and, as he basked in the adoration of the crowd, Chirac might have been able to forget all his woes.

He should make the most of such moments. Sarkozy seems to beat him at everything else.

July 24, 2005 at 12:06 PM in Europe | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home