Did Sarkozy's stint change the EU for good?
E-Mail Article
Printer-Friendly
3-Column Format
Translate
Share Article
Text Size
BRUSSELS: Six months after France illuminated the Eiffel Tower in a deep cobalt blue to open its European Union presidency, the Czech Republic - which takes over the job in January - asked privately if the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, would take part in a handover ceremony.
Sarkozy, came the polite but firm reply, does not want to be the person who switches off the giant neon EU symbol on the famous Paris landmark.
The anecdote, relayed privately by an informed official, is telling. With his hyperactive political style, Sarkozy has dominated the European stage at a time of crisis and is making no secret of his reluctance to leave the limelight.
"I have loved this job," Sarkozy told the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday in his farewell presidency appearance there.
What is less clear is whether his eventful six-month presidency has fundamentally changed the EU - and French attitudes to it - or simply given a restless leader a tool to burnish his image at home and abroad.
Today in Europe
"Was it just a parenthesis of bravado? Or will it be seen by historians as the beginning of a new Europe?" asked Dominique Moïsi, senior fellow at the French Institute of International Relations.
Few dispute that the French presidency had its successes. Although Moscow failed to implement the letter of a cease-fire in Georgia negotiated by Sarkozy, it did enough for the EU to resume formal partnership talks with Russia, the bloc's vast neighbor, key energy supplier and trading partner.
Then, as the international economic crisis took hold, Paris filled part of the vacuum left by the outgoing U.S. administration, helping convene a meeting of the most powerful global economies and coordinating a European response.
And last week Sarkozy persuaded all 27 EU nations to sign up to binding laws on how to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent by 2020. Despite making compromises to industry, this still left Europe in the vanguard of efforts to curb global warming.
Sarkozy's leadership has helped to reconnect the French with the EU, just three years after France - a founding member of the bloc - shocked itself and others by rejecting the EU's constitution in a referendum. In a BVA poll published Tuesday, 56 percent of the French approved of Sarkozy's EU presidency, while his domestic policies remain deeply unpopular.
Sarkozy has also surprised some by forging an alliance with Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, even inviting him to a meeting of countries that use the euro, which Britain has shunned.
Not everyone is pleased of course. Relations between Paris and Berlin are frosty. At a meeting in London with Brown two weeks ago, Sarkozy made clear his exasperation with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, for her reluctance to bolster government spending further to combat the slowdown, according to one diplomat who attended the meeting but is not authorized to speak about it.
Smaller and newer member states feel intimidated by someone who dispenses with the normal protocol at summit meetings and interrupts other leaders - as he did last week the Hungarian prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, according to a diplomat familiar with minutes of the meeting.
Diplomats complain of Sarkozy's mood changes. "He can be extremely charming," said one diplomat from a smaller member state, "but it is erratic and chaotic, rather as if he has woken up, it's a sunny day, he's in a good mood and he wants to pass that on."
The Czechs have also been angered by suggestions that Sarkozy might somehow stay on. Indeed, at a news conference in Strasbourg on Tuesday, Sarkozy said that "of course" the French "will be taking initiatives" after Jan. 1.
"For six months he felt like the king of the world - Bush was a lame-duck president and he was in the driving seat of the EU," Moïsi said. "Now Obama is coming in and he is no longer president of Europe. He will not accept such a demise."
After January, for example, France will still chair the new Union for the Mediterranean, set up last summer under the French presidency. The idea, floated by Paris, of regular summit meetings for leaders of euro-zone nations, chaired by Sarkozy, has not taken off - though some diplomats say further meetings are not impossible if the economic outlook worsens.
In some ways, Sarkozy has already forged a legacy. By lobbying for the G20 meeting in Washington in November and setting the stage for a follow-up in London in April, he has created a precedent that his successors cannot ignore. If the global economy continues to deteriorate, his ability as crisis manager might be called on once more.
Latest News
