Magazine / Current / French Presidency / Article | 26/06/2008

The Europe that protects, but what?

Immigration, climat, defense and agriculture: Those are the principal topics of the french presidency. Nicolas Sarkozy has now the possibility to affirm his ambitions within the forthcoming six months. François Bafoil with a critical analysis.

The French presidency has a unique window of opportunity for demonstrating that if any country brings into question free market principles inside the Union, this cannot be done at the expense of the political dimension of the defence of common interests. Liberal Europe or more political Europe, it rests with France to show now that the two dimensions are compatible.

Photo: AP

After all, it is these that were at the heart of the political message of the candidate Sarkozy a year ago. This expanded presidency gives him the opportunity finally to confirm the reality of his ambition, but this time throughout the Union. Mini treaty or very short treaty, Europe has made a good start, thanks to the French president's spontaneous impulse, and while at present the great wave of liberalism that has dominated the last 20 years appears to be marking time, for the moment the negotiations at the WTO are in progress and there is no doubt that there is a presidency that is clearly showing the challenges. And such challenges! There are no less than five that are at the heart of the political, national, European or world-wide discussions: immigration, energy and climate, agriculture, defence – without the inclusion of all those which, under French management, nurture exchanges between the administrations and amongst which must be included, in particular, the reflections on the future of the policy of cohesion and the common institutions. Undoubtedly, and without loudly proclaiming it, here is a presidency which, having announced that there is a wish to cause there to be a levelling off in dynamic expansion, now intends that the idea of "sourcing" actually be implemented, proving that agreement can be reached on such important matters. In this context, the Euro-Mediterranean project is of value as a test.

Which Euro-Mediterranean dialogue?

If there is a matter in connection with which there is reliance on the French presidency, it is certainly that of the Mediterranean. President Sarkozy has made this one of his landmark issues for two fundamental reasons: that of reinstating the North-South dialogue inside politics, since the inequalities across this axis have become so much worse in recent years and making controlled immigration a major policy of the Union. In this context, the slogan the French presidency has adopted, "a Europe that protects" has the merit of being addressed as much to the members of the Union as to its neighbours, Mediterranean ones, first of all. But protect them from what?

An ill-intentioned spirit might whisper "to protect them from France", since what France is accused of, in this connection, does not have to do so much with the project as with the fact that it has assumed the right to speak on the Mediterranean, without fear of its own neighbours. Spain was very upset about this matter, considering that the new dialogue was sapping the Barcelona process it had set up in1995 and which, until there is a new order, remains the context in which the Mediterranean policy of the EU is registered. The Italians considered that they have as much right to leadership as the French in this area. Germany retorted that it, too, was entitled to speak on this subject, if only because it hosts quite a considerable Turkish community and it does not intend to be confined to its East European back garden. Finally, a lot of other countries criticised the project for its claim to replace "the European policy of proximity", and as has been seen, causing "gallicisation" of the Union. Finally, it is no coincidence if Sweden and Poland – the first of which will take over the torch of the presidency from the Czechs in a year's time, and Poland not later than 2012 – have already announced the tone, advocating in their declaration a week ago, reinforced dialogue and an opening up to the East, more precisely to the Ukraine.

So, what promised to be a generous policy carried by the Guaino-Braudelian [1] grandiloquence of the "mare nostrum" as the future of the EU seems to have been shattered over the reality of a European community that remains, first and foremost, a Union of States with well-defined national interests.

The question of immigration or agriculture?

What can be concluded from this concert of reproaches, which has subsided on the project initiated by Nicolas Sarkozy? Two main points:

Firstly, that the cleavages traversing Europe decidedly seem to be persisting. To the North / North blockage, which set great countries like Great Britain, Germany and France against one another on what should (or should not) be the political behaviour of the common area, is added the South / South blockage, which supported the conflicts of the western Sahara and the Israeli-Arab conflict as well as the North / South conflict, since a great many of the countries in the North did not wish to hear of co-operation with the South. In this context, which is the dominant one, it is the absence of effective institutional tools and fora for exchange. It might have been expected that this project by the French presidency might tackle these long-term legacies, but perhaps this was too much to ask. The consistency of the project suddenly seems to have failed, in proportion to the political will.

And it is here in particular that the project of the French presidency seems decidely to be an insurmountable challenge. The situation between the countries bordering the Mediterranean – those of the South and the East Mediterranean – and those of the EU deteriorated so much in the decade 1995 – 2005 in terms of flow of capital, investment and moreover agricultural exchanges, that it might have been expected that agriculture would be dealt with in first place. Well all the attention, not to mention the goose-pimples, seem to concern the question of migration, not agriculture. The latter, which is still so important on each side of the sea, is the poor relation of the programme. Why? Because in reality, an agricultural policy aimed at supporting country-people living in areas bordering the Mediterranean would go resolutely against the interests of the country-people of the other bank, our own. As shown by the remarkable work carried out very recently under the management of Bertrand Hervieu [2], the North / South exchanges compared during the last forty years (between 1963 and 2003) have revealed inverse dynamics. If the share of exports from the North (and in particular France) in world trade rose during this period, from 22% to 45%, that of the South fell, from 4% at the beginning of the 'sixties to 2% at the present time [3].

Under these conditions and taking into consideration the fact that the policies recommended by the international organisations concerning deregulation caused havoc, particularly in relation the production of cereals, what is the EU's market reinforcement policy worth ? More precisely, what public policy must be implemented in order to protect the producers inside their markets? How can a decent income be guaranteed and what inducements could be formulated to favour the initiative? How could the EU and the WTO agree to reconsider prices, in the way the EU goes about this moreover with its own producers?
The Mediterranean project does not say anything about this. What is promised as the French presidency's great operation seems on the one hand to be limited by the EU's own mainly (but not exclusively) French producers, fiercely attached to a "sanctuarised" CAP, and the developments of which are not seen clearly, and on the other hand embroiled in the question of border control and immigration, each of which urges that only a development mastered from the South may be the solution. Measured with this yardstick, "the Europe that protects" runs the risk of being protectionist, that is to say still more dismissive than it has been up to present.

For any EU country, occupying the presidency of the Union for 6 months is a decisive time. A versatile image may remain, as following the Blair presidency two years ago, initially promising, and yet lacking any consistency in the end. But it is possible to leave behind the image of a presidency determined to have the collective interest promoted in small stages, as did the German presidency six months ago. On these matters, the presidency is open to two choices. He can show that politics has not lost the match in Europe and, for example, ensure that the discussions on immigration are open to something other than the morbid decline in identity and advertising "punch". In this way, the French presidency will be seen as a collective reference; otherwise France will not be at the peak of its ambition, on which it prides itself, projecting throughout the Community the arrogant vanity with which the French and so many of its neighbours reproach their president, and then it will be said that the Sarkozy presidency was a missed opportunity.

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