FRENCH DISAFFECTION WITH THE EU

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PARIS 005865

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/01/2016
TAGS: PREL FR EU MARR PGOV
SUBJECT: FRENCH DISAFFECTION WITH THE EU

REF: A. PARIS 5811

B. PARIS 5837

Classified By: PolMC Josiah Rosenblatt for reasons 1.4 (B & D).


1. (SBU) Summary and comment: France's President, Foreign
Minister and Minister-Delegate for European Affairs used
their late-August remarks to France's conclave of
ambassadors, each in his/her own way, to express their
continuing concerns about the EU's perceived weaknesses.
Chirac complained about the absence of EU action on Lebanon,
and Douste-Blazy highlighted France's successful effort to
insert the criterion of the EU's absorptive capacity as a way
to slow down EU enlargement. Colonna's presentation was the
most pessimistic, and all the more revealing for being
heartfelt. She criticized the EU for increasing
factionalism, indecisiveness, inefficiency, and a focus on
details that invariably harmed Europe's broader strategic
interests and alienated it from its citizens. Her remarks
made clear the extent to which France is still searching for
the path, following the failed referendum on an EU
constitution, to its long-cherished goal of a "political
Europe" equal to the U.S. in power and influence. The
current discouragement suggests that France's hopes to push
through institutional reforms by the end of its 2008
presidency could well depend on the vision and energy of
France's next president. To her credit, Colonna took it upon
herself to ask some of the hard questions. End summary and
comment.

Chirac's regrets
--------------

2. (SBU) During his August 28 remarks to France's assembled
ambassadors on France's key foreign policy objectives (ref
A),President Chirac, referring to the EU's failure to
mandate the High Representative for CFSP Javier Solana with
taking the lead in dealing with Lebanon (as he does on Iran),
regretted that Europe had not done more to promote a
resolution of the Lebanon crisis. In an apparent indirect
reference to the U.S. and reference to Europe's continuing
weakness, he called on the EU to "emancipate itself from
inhibitions" in order to deal with its "partners" according
to the continent's own interests. The only real positive
note was his enumeration of the EU's growing ESDP missions in
a number of countries: Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Aceh,
DRC and soon Kosovo. He concluded with the hope that Europe
would affirm itself as an antidote to world instability and
globalization.

Douste-Blazy's caution
--------------

3. (U) During his own remarks on August 29 (ref B),FM
Douste-Blazy vaunted above all France's success in adding the
criterion of absorptive capacity to consideration of new EU
members (effectively slowing down future enlargements),
saying it would be irresponsible to ignore the concerns that
enlargement had elicited in France and elsewhere. He called
for more "political" control of the process to ensure that
enlargement does not proceed on automatic pilot, and
highlighted France's willingness, if necessary, to delay or
suspend accession negotiations with a particular candidate
country. (Comment: Clearly a reference to Turkey. End
comment). On EU institutional reforms, Douste-Blazy said it
would be necessary to work within existing treaties for the
moment, but he expressed the hope for new "decisions" by the
end of the French EU presidency in 2008. Finally, he called
for concrete projects which would bring Europe closer to its
citizens, but which he also defined as more CFSP and ESDP as
well as an increased European ability to respond to
humanitarian crises and natural catastrophes. He concluded
his remarks with a call for "recreating European momentum
based on renewed confidence, without which the European
political project would never see the light of day."

Catherine Colonna's outright pessimism
--------------

4. (U) In a subsequent August 29 intervention by
Minister-Delegate for European Affairs Catherine Colonna,
however, the tone was markedly and more openly dejected, as
summed up by her statement that "while there was no crisis,
the EU is afflicted with "languor" (mainly owing to its long
and complicated decision-making processes) and general
fatigue (at a later point she even refers to exhaustion),
which had the potential to call into question the entire
European integration project. She asked rhetorically whether
the EU could continue to move so slowly in a world that was
increasingly not inclined to wait for it. She worried that
while the EU was confronted with global demands, it was not a
global actor.


5. (U) Colonna attributed the blame to the EU's functioning
more and more as an intergovernmental body producing, more
often than not, difficult compromises (if reaching a decision

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is possible at all) based on diverse views rather than an
attempt to promote the common interest. She also discerned a
quasi-universal distrust of integration and the process of
"harmonization" (of legislation and regulations) that
historically has been at the heart of the European
"construction." Colonna blamed this growing alienation on
three causes. First, enlargement had changed the very
essence of the European project; what had worked for six or
sixteen no longer did for twenty-five or more. Second, she
identified globalization as another destabilizing factor for
the classic European model, judging that European-wide
economies of scale no longer provided the opportunities of
the past and lamenting that Europe as a whole was falling
behind other parts of the world in the areas of competition,
growth, employment, and investment in research and
development. A particularly difficult test for Europe, she
said, was to find the right balance between a dynamic and
"social" economy.


6. (U) Third, Colonna cited citizens' greater expectations
toward Europe -- which she said were as diverse as they were
all-encompassing -- as an additional factor of instability.
On the one hand, they tended to look to Europe whenever there
was a problem, whether this involved firefighting in
Portugal, illegal immigrants in the Canary Islands, avian
flu, terrorism, and most recently Lebanon. Each time,
citizens wanted to know "what Europe is doing." On the other
hand, Europe often was unable to respond, particularly given
that its member states remained unwilling to dedicate more
than one percent of their overall GNP to the EU budget. The
result was that, although Europe was confronted with global
demands, it was not a global actor. Although the EU
possessed the basic instruments to assume these
responsibilities -- including a budget, CFSP and ESDP -- it
had neither the habits of, nor the will to, global power.


7. (U) Colonna prescribed three remedies for coming years.
First, over the short term, it would be necessary improve the
functioning of the EU on the basis of existing treaties
(pending the approval of a replacement for the draft
constitutional treaty rejected by the French electorate; this
is France's current policy). Second, over the mid-term, the
EU would require institutional reforms to restore its
capacity to take decisions and action, primarily through a
rebalancing of power among the Council, the Commission, and
the European Parliament. For the Council, there was a need
for decision-making based on a "super majority" rather than
unanimity in all but a few cases. She also called for
limiting the powers of the Commission to make it a more
"collegial" body that represents the general interest. The
role and visibility of the European Parliament would also
need to be increased as the voice of European citizens.


8. (U) Third, Colonna called for recalibrating and rendering
more equitable the balance of power between the EU's larger
and smaller states. Specifically, she referred to the
excessive disparity between countries with small and large
populations (in the French view, clearly to the detriment of
the latter). She also criticized the EU's practice of
granting large and small states alike the same representation
rights on the Commission. Colonna asked rhetorically whether
it was right and reasonable that the states formed from the
disintegration of the Former Yugoslavia, for example, should
in aggregation end up with more seats on the commission than
such key states as France or Germany.


9. (U) Finally, Colonna called on the EU to involve itself
less with regulating the daily lives of citizens, saying that
it was more important for the EU to assume its
responsibilities in Lebanon -- or other broader issues such
as internal and external security, employment, sustainable
development, migration, foreign policy -- than the size of
clams being raised in the ocean off the coast of Bordeaux.
She stated that, "the Union needs to make choices; it can't
do everything, it is not there to do everything and we cannot
ask it to do everything." Or summing up, "the EU should do
fewer small things, and more big ones."


10. (U) Looking to the future, Colonna said it was time for
the EU to make a qualitative leap toward more fundamental
change. On enlargement, the fundamental question needed to
be answered as to what it means to be a European country,
since enlargement modified substantially the very essence of
the European project, and it was impossible to pretend that
EU was pursuing the same goals but had simply grown in
number. Member states needed to "push their thinking farther
and not fear to debate the shape of the entire European
project," since it was necessary to acknowledge that it could
not be a process without an end. She added that the "Europe
of results" and concrete projects "was itself in need of
results." She called for an open debate on France's
influence in Europe -- including in the upcoming presidential
elections -- saying it was time for France to take pride

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again in constructing Europe.

Comment
--------------

11. (C) Chirac's complaint about EU inaction on Lebanon
strikes us as somewhat disingenuous, to the extent that he
personally took the lead in dealing with the Lebanon crisis
and had only himself to blame if he did not turn earlier to
the EU. It was also France that insisted on national
contributions to UNIFIL rather than attempting to create an
ESDP mission, even if this would have required use of the
Berlin Plus mechanism to obtain NATO support. The fact is
that the French reflex remains to identify themselves with
the EU so long as it agrees with them or is willing to follow
their lead, but to blame things on the EU when they are
outvoted. This has also been the case economically, where
French discomfort with globalization and attempts to
introduce more free-market principles and open competition
into the internal market has lead to increased protectionism.


12. (C) Colonna's "cri de coeur" nonetheless demonstrates
the extent to which France continues to suffer the
aftershocks of the May 29, 2005 referendum defeat on the EU
constitutional treaty. The speech illustrates as well
France's continuing difficulties in resolving a number of
conundrums related to its strategic goal of a "political" EU,
independent of the U.S. and its rival in global power and
influence. France may worry about the effect of EU
enlargement on decision-making, particularly its impact on
French influence, but it is paradoxically only through EU
enlargement that the EU will rightfully be able to claim a
greater role on the world stage. Similarly, we suspect
France's enthusiasm for super-majorities will be determined
by the degree to which it perceives it is still able to
protect its own equities; as new members decrease France's
overall influence within the EU, it has already moved to seek
alliances with the other larger EU member states (whence an
abiding interest more coordination among France, Germany, the
UK, Italy, Spain and Poland). In that context, the
Franco-German partnership could become as useful for blocking
as well as initiating action; and maintaining the tandem,
given Germany's increasing self-confidence and greater
influence with new member states, could become even more
important to France than to Germany. While it remains to be
seen what can be accomplished by the end of the French
presidency in 2008, the current mood suggests that only a new
president with new vision and energy to fulfill France's
long-cherished idea of a "political Europe" will be effective
in turning around the current pessimistic mood.



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