Nicolas Sarkozy, rearing to go with Europe

On January 8, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that he wanted to give Europe immigration, defence, energy and environmental policies during France's EU Presidency in the second half of 2008. The European Affairs columnist Thomas Ferenczi is sceptical. "You need to have a certain presumptuousness in order to dare imagine that six months of French presidency will be enough to install communal policies that EU has been trying to laboriously develop for years. ... The state that acts as president doesn't have absolute power. Its margin of manoeuvre is limited by the condition of the issues that it wishes to put on the table and by the positions of other states. ... The best presidencies, explains an official of the Commission, are those not using too much spin. This isn't exactly Sarkozy's style."

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