The French EU presidency - a bumpy road ahead
Since the Irish voted against the Lisbon Treaty in their referendum on June 12, 2008, France’s political priorities for its six months EU Presidency seem overly ambitious and slightly out of touch with the overall political situation in the EU. While – from a juridical point of view – France can pursue most of its set priorities on the basis of the Nice Treaty, its political scope of action is limited by the fact that its overall task has become to put the Lisbon Treaty back on track by December 2008 at the latest. It also faces severe time constraints, as this short second-term Presidency starts just before the political summer break. No Council or Council working group meetings are scheduled in the whole month of August, while the Christmas break cuts off roughly a week in the end.
France is furthermore the first of the EU’s second ever Trio Presidency. It will be seconded by the Czech Republic in the first and Sweden in the second semester of 2010. In addition to the joint programme for the 18 months period, France has defined its own political priorities (see below) most which are unlikely to be followed up by the other two member states, who have very different points of view on many policy issues (notably with respect to economic policy, globalization etc.).There has already been open dispute in the trio over fundamental issues such as the EU’s economic openness, the role of competition, the understanding of globalization etc.
The overall political context
Since the Irish referendum, it is clear that the EU is still stuck in the reform crisis that also manifested itself in 2005, when the Dutch and the French voted against the Constitutional Treaty. This is not foremost a crisis of legitimacy of the EU, but in particular crisis of leadership.
National electorates refused to follow their national political leaders in an integration project judged as being of historical scale. Although public opinion in most EU states did not turn hostile towards the EU or European integration as such, it appeared to be critical towards the way European integration is “managed” by national political leaders. Discrepancies between citizens’ expectations towards Europe and the “performance” of the EU are obvious. There are competing analyses about the nature of the crisis in the EU, and about possible remedies to bridge the gap between the EU and its citizens. Germany, during its EU Presidency, focused on the construction of a new elite consensus on saving the political substance of the Constitutional Treaty and put some emphasis on a better performance of EU policies (notably in the field of energy provision and climate change). This reflects the mainstream approach to politics in the EU which treated the non-ratification of the Constitutional Treaty not as a structural crisis of integration, but rather as a “ratification accident” which could be covered up by a “better policy output”, without questioning governance structures and without improving mechanisms of creating political legitimacy for the EU and its policies. France, though with a different tone (Sarkozy’s emphasis that the EU has to protect the citizens’ interests), seems to follow this strategy which yet has not delivered convincing results since the Constitutional Treaty failed in 2005.
The Lisbon Treaty as France’s first priority
The Lisbon Treaty was – regardless of the Irish referendum result – going to occupy a considerable part of the French Presidency. Up to the referendum, all efforts where concentrated on preparing the implementation of the Treaty for January 2009. Now, France’s biggest task is to prepare the decision by the European Council (either for October or December 2008) whether and how to move forward with the Lisbon Treaty after the Irish No. The reactions around the June summit revealed that a majority of member governments supports the idea to continue the ratification process, and then to present a special declaration or protocol to Ireland, which – like in the case of the Nice Treaty – should be added to the text and should make it acceptable in a referendum. This will be no easy task. In contrast to the situation in the years 2001/2002, when the Nice Treaty was resubmitted to Ireland for a second referendum, the reasons for the “No” of the year 2008 were much more diverse and less linked to factual innovations of the Treaty. In a first step, France has to put pressure on some EU governments to continue their ratification processes (notably on the Czech Republic and Poland) and to counterbalance political discourse from those two countries which attempts to delegitimize the Lisbon Treaty as such.
If there is a realistic chance for the Lisbon Treaty to be ratified, the preparation of its implementation will gain importance for the Trio Presidency. For instance, the external action service and the new posts of High Representative (the “Foreign Minister) and the permanent Council President will have to be shaped (practical details of the offices, supporting services, budget questions etc.) and staffed. This latter task may turn out to be delicate as the first nominees will define the nature of the offices, to which the Treaty leaves much room for interpretation: If a politician known for strong political leadership and European ambitions is appointed, this predetermines the positioning of the new post in the European institutional setting and vis-à-vis the member states. This is salient for the High Representative (who is also the Vice-President of the European Commission) and the permanent President of the European Council, as between these two and the Commission President frictions may occur regarding their respective roles in the external representation of the EU. Further, the relationship of the future Presidency of the European Council and the rotating EU Presidency will have to be defined. The success of the new triple-head-structure of the European Union will moreover depend on the member state’s willingness to equip the new positions with sufficient resources in order to enable them to assume political leadership and to cooperate with the new office holders.
If yet, by October, the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty turns out to be unrealistic, the Council could discuss implementing elements of the reform package without embarking on a fully-fledged reform of the EU Treaty. On this matter, the French Presidency would have to cooperate closely with the Czech and Swedish Presidencies following, as such an initiative will not be completed by the end of the year. Some of the reforms could be adopted by interinstitutional agreements (such as the post of the High Representative or the European External Action Service) or by a reform of the functioning of the Council (such as the permanent Presidency). However, even if these partial reforms were implemented with the objective to make the functioning of the EU system more efficient and/or democratic without being able to implement the whole Treaty, critics of the Lisbon Treaty are likely to classify these efforts as attempts to implement the Treaty “through the back door”. Revising the institutional functioning of the EU by means of interinstitutional agreements and other juridical means below a revision of primary EU law is less transparent and less subject to democratic scrutiny than a treaty reform ratified by the member states. Hence, the EU Presidency would have to make important efforts to communicate these steps. In addition, heading for only a partial implementation of the Lisbon reform package may unravel the overall compromise forged among the 27 governments. The task for the French and the succeeding Presidencies to moderate among conflicting interests should hence not be underestimated, even if only a small part of the reform is actually being implemented.
Further political priorities of France
In addition to these tasks related to the overarching issue of reforming the EU, France has defined an ambitious list of political priorities in selected policy areas for its six months term. Hardly any of these would suffer - from a juridical point of view - because the Lisbon Treaty will not enter into force on January 1, 2009 as initially expected. But some may experience considerable political set-backs.
The legislative programme in the field of energy and climate policy is already on track in the co-decision procedure (cp. for instance the C02 directive). The Lisbon Treaty does not foresee any change here, and implies no additional EU competencies. Likewise, the position that the EU needs to forge ahead of the UN summit on climate change in Copenhagen in 2009 has to be decided upon, with or without Lisbon.
The Union for the Mediterranean will be launched as planned during the EU-Mediterranean summit to be held on July 13, 2008 in Paris. There are serious difficulties linked to the organization of the launch summit and to the shaping of the revamped EU Mediterranean policy. They partly result from bad and too late preparation; others are due to political circumstances and structural rigidities in the region which can naturally not by brushed away by announcing a new regional initiative.
The “Health Check” of the Common Agricultural Policy and the debate pushed by France on the future of public spending in the EU after 2013 are likewise juridically independent from the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty. The debate on CAP coincides with the global food crisis, which puts particular emphasis on the subject as such (and has led to heated controversies within the EU itself), and which also increases to rethink current practices in terms of subsidies and international trade policies.
The Pact for Immigration is likely to be decided as planned during the October European Council (the same summit that will also deal with the future of the Lisbon Treaty). It is likely to improve the EU’s means to control illegal migration (border controls, biometric Visa, return agreements etc.) and will define rules for chosen migration to the EU (blue card). Furthermore, France pushes for harmonization of national asylum policies. When preparing the Pact for Immigration, it seems that France has been anticipating the co-decision rights of the European Parliament expected to be implemented in this policy field with the Lisbon Treaty, by putting special emphasis on close cooperation and co-preparation with the European Parliament. As the future of the Treaty is unclear, it is likely to pursue this track.
The strengthening of the EU’s Security and Defense Policy was initially the most ambitious of the French priorities. The Irish “No” has limited the political scope for France in this field, as Ireland, due to the country’s military neutrality, has always taken a reluctant position on a defense identity for the EU. Any too big a step forward in this field could endanger a future attempt to ratify the Treaty in Ireland. But it would at the same time be wrong to blame the downscaling of French ambitions in this field solely on the Irish “No”. Other partners were reluctant to engage pro-actively with Sarkozy’s initiative. The encounter with Gordon Brown in London in spring 2008 showed what to expect from Franco-British cooperation in security and defense policy at the moment: little willingness on the side of the UK to engage in longer-term projects, in a strategic pooling of capabilities or more financial engagement. Also, Franco-German cooperation in security and defense matters is dragging on. Germany was, firstly, among those EU countries which prevented France from writing a new European Security Strategy under its Presidency, but only granted it with a Council mandate to update the 2003 document with protocols on relevant points. Germany is furthermore reluctant to beef up its defense budget, which is small in comparison to French and British. Regarding bilateral cooperation (which could, as it did in the past, serve as a base for joint European initiatives) projects and initiatives see likewise to be dragging on. Under these conditions, apart from the update of the Security Strategy, French ambitions for the ESDP sound moderate. It still pursues the creation of strategic airlift capacities for the EU (based on the A300M), it intends to improve the strategic planning and operational capacities in the EU and wants to strengthen the European Defence Agency and is pushing for an extended “Erasmus exchange programme”. Regarding the Lisbon Treaty, Sarkozy was intending to use the structured cooperation that the Treaty introduces for closer cooperation among a smaller group of member states (likely partners would have been Germany, the UK, Poland and Spain). It is probable that France seeks closer cooperation with a smaller number of member states, even if the instrument of structured cooperation is not available. Furthermore, France will continue to prepare its re-entry into the military structures of Nato (though this may turn out not to be a full and complete integration). For this step, it also needs to find agreements with its EU partners who, when France left Nato in 1966, took over part of the former French command posts and still occupy them today.
Perspectives for the Presidency
The French agenda seems particularly ambitious. All priorities concern strategically important – and hence possibly highly conflictual policy fields. In order to get the support of all 26 EU partners, the French government will have to demonstrate a very high degree of commitment and dedicate important resources to the negotiations. Not all priorities can be pursued with the same emphasis, and the evolution of the “Lisbon crisis” will crucially determine what other initiatives France can push. In any case, the success of the French Presidency will be measured by Sarkozy’s capacity to moderate a way out of the current deadlock situation.
There is one interesting lesson to draw from the German EU Presidency of 2007 which – with the Constitutional Treaty – had a major comparable dossier to tackle. The German EU Presidency opted for a bilateralisation of negotiations, as a means to deal with the more complex situation in the Council and the Council working groups since the EU’s enlargement to 25 members in 2004. This method was chosen for dealing with the Constitutional Treaty and the Berlin Declaration on the EU’s 50th anniversary, but was also applied to very difficult legislative processes, for instance in the field of Justice and Home Affairs where a consensus was very difficult to forge. This method is very time and resource consuming, and can only by ensured by large countries possessing a strong diplomatic team devoted to running the EU Presidency. But – even if there is a strong diplomatic staff as is the case for France – this can only work if those resources can, if there is need, be concentrated on outstanding initiatives, and are not sent out to accomplish too many missions at the same time. Prioritization will hence be a key element in organizing its success.
Another crucial point will be France’s ability to engage the fellow member governments and the EU institutions for its political objectives. “L’Europe protection” is not a widely supported approach within the EU, and the more polarizing France’s President Sarkozy acts according to this motto (cp. for instance the recent dispute with Commissioner Mandelson), the less he will be able to obtain substantial policy results which have to engage all or at least a majority of partners involved.