EU Referendum

Showing posts with label Sarkozy. Show all posts

It seems that Presidents Sarkozy and Medvedev have agreed on a six-point peace plan that the Georgians will be required to sign. As Sarkozy was supposed to have gone to Moscow with the European plan that President Saakashvili already signed yesterday, one can only assume that there had been some change or substitution of plans.

Moscow Times reports that the Russians want Georgia to agree to a cease-fire (which they requested two days ago), a return of their troops to their bases and the continuing presence of Russian troops peacekeepers in the two break-away regions. This cannot be all as these terms merely restore that famous status quo ante.

What are the other three points? If Russia is happy to restore matters to what they were at the beginning of last week the whole expedition becomes questionable. Did they get a bigger mauling than anybody had realized?

Sarkozy also emphasised that the South Ossetians and Abkhazians should be asked whether they want to be part of Georgia. The answer almost certainly will be no. On the other hand, will they be asked whether they want to be part of Russia, which seems to be their fate? I predict serious military problems in South Ossetia within a year.

The BBC Russian Service website reports that President Saakashvili has signed the document that Presidents Sarkozy and Medvedev had put together. (Where is former President, now Prime Minister Putin, we ask.)

The BBC World Service is cautious, remarking that some of the details, where the devil is, no doubt, are still up for discussion. Both sides are still accusing the other of ruthless murder of civilians though only the Russians have used the word "genocide", hoping, presumably, to remind their own people yet again of World War II. After all, much of Putin's foreign policy has been conducted with an eye on domestic population - win or lose, he had to appear tough.

The Russian Service lists the six items as read out by President Medvedev and fairly anodyne they are, too [my translation]:

eschew all use of force

final cessation of military activity (at this stage it was still temporary as there had been no Georgian signature)

free access to humanitarian aid (NGOs have not been allowed into Chechnya - will they be allowed into South Ossetia under its new status?)

Georgian armed forces return to their permanent bases

Russian forces return to their positions before the start of the military activity; Russian peacekeeping forces will remain and institute additional security measures until trust between Georgians and Ossetians is restored

there will be an international discussion of the status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as well of the two regions' security [something Russia has always shown herself to be against in the past]

So far, none of this seems worth the trouble the Russians have gone to. Although President Sarkozy seems certain that the Russian government will not demand a change of government in Georgia and Russian forces will not occupy any part of Georgia proper, President Medvedev's language about his opponent remains extreme and personally abusive.

Later on today, I expect, there will be some more twists.

UPDATE: According to Reuters, the reference to talks on the future status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have been removed. It probably was not all that important to Medvedev, anyway. Saakashvili is talking about international peacekeepers replacing Russian ones in South Ossetia. Medvedev is saying nothing about that.

Sarkozy_Bruni[i-Sarkozy_Bruni]One might wonder whether this is a prescient account of what might happen in Britain towards the end of 2010 or early in 2011:

The sigh of relief that greeted the defeat of his Socialist opponent … last year can only last so long. It's nice to have been spared the worst. But it doesn't make you enjoy the simply bad.

Actually, it is a ferocious analysis of what is wrong with Nicolas Sarkozy and how he has managed to squander the hopes invested in him just a few months ago. The article is by Pierre Briançon, a distinguished French journalist, at present the Paris correspondent of BreakingViews.

We have already written about the first round of the French local elections and about the predictable and widely predicted losses Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). The second round, this Sunday, was no better from their point of view.

Ten months after Nicolas Sarkozy won the presidential election, his UMP party and other conservative allies received around 47.5 percent of votes in municipal elections on Sunday, March 16. The Socialists and the small parties close to them brought home about 49 percent.

The conservatives lost their strongholds of Toulouse and Strasbourg, and upsets in Reims, Amiens and Caen, routed conservatives and centrists from mayoral positions. In Perigueux,Education Minister Xavier Darcos lost his bid for reelection as mayor by around 100 votes.

Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe, a Socialist, handily won reelection with 57.7 percent of the vote. The left-wing mayor of Lyon also defended his seat.

Still, France's second city, Marseille, remained in conservative hands, with the reelection of UMP Mayor Jean Claude Gaudin.

Ségolène Royal, the Socialist presidential candidate Sarkozy defeated last May, called Sunday's results "a vote of hope." Socialist leaders said the government should respond to voters' dissatisfaction by abandoning "unjust" reforms.

Ségo’s reaction, echoed by many Socialists, shows that the woman has remained as clueless as she has always been. It is not the injustice of those reforms that has riled the French but their non-existence in reality as opposed to the threats.

The turn-out of 54 per cent was lower than that of the previous week and shows that a sizeable proportion of the population remains unprepared to vote Socialist even if they are dissatisfied with the right. Local and regional elections in France matter a great deal more than here, as there is real power of patronage, if nothing else, attached to the positions.

Sarko’s response to the defeat was also predictable. He and his ministers vowed to carry on with the reform, which is good to know, though starting them might be an even better policy. Much depends on whether he will start or continue with his reforms despite the various opinion polls that seem to suggest the opposite.

An opinion poll by the BVA polling institute showed 63 percent of those questioned judged the government's economic policies bad or very bad, against 58 percent a month ago.

The poll also found that 51 percent thought he should adapt his policies to reflect the concerns of voters over social issues and the need to protect services, against 40 percent who wanted faster reforms of pensions and public finances.

To show that he is serious Sarkozy made some minor changes to his Cabinet and assured the voters that he would change his style.

M. Briançon, with whose article I started this posting is unimpressed:

Nicolas Sarkozy has wasted no time showing that he has misunderstood the resounding defeat of his conservative party in last Sunday's municipal elections. He's reshuffling the presidential staff, bringing in a few fresh and irrelevant faces as junior cabinet members, and promising to "change style" -- by which he means, presumably, that he will not marry again, will stop wearing tacky shades and won't have his jeans ironed any longer.

But the French president is kidding himself if thinks the main problem in the first eight months of his term has been style, not substance, communication and not policies. His flashy ways and cool new wife only became problems once the French realized that the chance for serious reforms was slowly being squandered while their president was basking in his new-found happiness.

Truth be told, nothing much has happened in France since Mr. Sarkozy was elected on a promise of "rupture." Reports have been commissioned and ignored, ministers have been infantilized and silenced, while the president has faked action on all fronts, talking here and insulting opponents there with expletives no U.S.-based newspaper could print.

But true reforms have been rare and few. The Sarkozy administration has made a few commendable inroads on topics that were long considered taboo. But their limited scale gives an idea of what passes for reform in France these days. Train conductors have been asked to retire at the same young age (60) as anyone else, and not ten years earlier.

State-owned universities have been granted some degree of autonomy that might allow them, down the road, to -- heaven forbid -- compete with each other. Neither the job-killing 35-hour week nor the populist, so-called wealth tax have been abolished, though their most absurd consequences have been curtailed by creating major loopholes.

Are we to understand that the French President is all style (good, bad or indifferent) and no substance? Mais c’est épatant.

Nicolas+Sarkozy02[i-Nicolas+Sarkozy02]One of our readers has already indicated some pointers to the Sarko in Euroland story as a follow-up to this. Let’s say, Sarko is having an up-and-down time.

First the good news. It would seem that he and Chancellor Merkel are at one in their assessment of Iran as a continuing threat, despite the latest US intelligence report, which said that the previous intelligence report was completely wrong.

During their joint press conference on December 6 Merkel indicated though did not say it out openly that she was no longer worried about Sarkozy’s plans for a Club Med, as it has been termed by the media.

One of the fault-lines of the European Union is the division between member states that look towards the Mediterranean and those that do not. The latter are also divided into more Atlanticist and more Continental minded countries. Germany, tends to be Continental-minded despite Merkel’s continuing mild pro-Americanism. Her relatively tough stance on Russia and Putin, which does not extend to changing Germany’s growing dependence on Russian gas, is part of that Continental attitude: the former Communist states are Germany’s natural allies (and no, I don’t want to hear any rubbish about it being a continuation of lebensraum – as it happens there is a great deal of difference between Angela Merkel and Adolf Hitler or Kaiser Bill).

French politicians had always recognized this and tried to stall EU’s enlargement to the east as long as possible, arguing that political links should be forged with the non-EU Mediterranean countries. Naturally enough, those political links would not extend to reforming the trade policies or CAP but in Sarko’s case, they do include signing an agreement with Algeria to give that country civil nuclear technology.

The deal, covering power generation and applications of nuclear technology in agriculture, biology and water resources, must first be endorsed by the European Union.

The details of the deal were lost in the row over Sarko talking about the evils of colonialism but refusing to apologize for the French version of it or acknowledge that there might have been the odd problem or two about the Algerian War.

Sarkozy_Algeria[i-Sarkozy_Algeria]Back home he did refer to the war in order to praise the harkis, Algerians who fought on the French side and were then left to the mercies of the new regime after the French withdrew. Belatedly, their sacrifices are being acknowledged but this does not necessarily please other Algerians any more than Sarko’s firm anti-immigration stand does.

Apparently there will be a streamlining of visa rules for visits and President Sarkozy talked of the need for young people from the two countries to learn from each other.

Algerian commentators say political ties remain hostage to the past, a subject dear to the current Algerian leadership, most of whom took part in the struggle against France.

Don’t know about that. The War was over 45 years ago. What many of them took part in is the fall-out afterwards when erstwhile comrades turned on each other in quite a nasty fashion.

Even that was rather a long time ago. As for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s supposed record as a freedom fighter, it has far too many unexplained gaps. I can believe, however, that memories of that very nasty conflict die hard on all sides.

On the whole, Sarkozy seems to have achieved what he wanted, which is to proclaim the need for a special Mediterranean regional agreement that would, undoubtedly, be led by France. The EU is not happy as Deutsche Welle explains and that is not necessarily what the man wants unless he can avoid future repercussions. We shall see what happens when the Algerian deal is discussed in real earnest.

Sarkozy wants to create an economic, political and cultural union of Mediterranean rim states and invited those interested in participating to a summit in June. But many European Union countries have expressed opposition to the idea, which they see as competition for the bloc's so-called Barcelona process, which aims to increase ties between the EU and Mediterranean states.

It was Angela Merkel who expressed that opposition most clearly. (The lady is given to expressing views fairly clearly as seen from her statement about Zimbabwe during the benighted and completely pointless EU-Africa Summit. On the other hand, she did attend it unlike the heads of government of Britain, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Cyprus.)

Speaking at a conference in Berlin Wednesday, Merkel attacked Sarkozy's vision for an association of Mediterranean nations as being "very dangerous." The German chancellor used unusually harsh language to warn the French president against splitting the very core of the European Union with his vision of a Paris-led alternative union -- and one from which Germany would be excluded.

Merkel said she was highly skeptical of Sarkozy's plans and insisted that any cooperation with the EU's neighbors must include all EU member states. Otherwise, she warned, Germany could, for example, form an Eastern European Union with Ukraine and other countries. These types of developments would threaten the cohesion and unity of the EU, she said. She warned that allowing a separate association with access to the EU coffers could lead to a "corrosion of the EU in its core area" and release "explosive forces in the EU that I would not like to see."

"One thing has to be clear," she said. "Northern Europeans also share responsibility for the Mediterranean, just as the future of the borders with Russia and Ukraine is an issue that concerns those living on the Mediterranean."

Actually, she is wrong in that assessment. The reason is it impossible to create a common foreign policy, that long-cherished aim of the European Union, is precisely because these various cross-concerns do not exist.

Sarkozy_Merkel[i-Sarkozy_Merkel]There is also the suspicion that by “creating” this Mediterranean Union that would stretch from Morocco to Turkey, Sarkozy hopes to defuse the problem of the latter country’s application to the EU.
Having had a frank and open discussion with Sarko, Merkel has moderated her expressions:

On Thursday, however, she qualified those comments, saying it would be unacceptable for the different parts of Europe to orient themselves in another direction. It would be a "difficult test" for the EU, if a second union were to be established, she added.

It seems extraordinary that there are people in Britain who still think either approvingly or disapprovingly that this country is the greatest obstacle EU integration faces.

Nicolas+Sarkozy02[i-Nicolas+Sarkozy02]It is a little hard to tell whether Nicolas Sarkozy wants to ensure that France becomes or remains top dog in the EU or whether his real aim is to destroy the EU. Could be first one then the other.

Fistly, there was Sarko’s rush to congratulate President Putin on his party list’s victory in the Duma elections. The rest of the EU is still humming and haing, unable to achieve one of those famous common positions.

But Germany flatly called the election "neither free, fair nor democratic" by Western standards, and most other EU governments expressed concern about reports of voting irregularities.

Donald Tusk, the new prime minister of Poland, on Tuesday questioned the legitimacy of the Russian elections, saying that they had not respected democratic standards.

"We in Europe should not be tolerant of a situation when democratic standards are not being respected or are downright broken," he said.

Mind you, Donald Tusk also said

You cannot turn a blind eye to what happened, there are results of elections and these results are not going to be challenged by anyone in Europe.

Make what you will of that.

Other countries have not been happy with the conduct of those elections either but when it came to a statement, the best the Portuguese presidency could come up with was a bit of finger-wagging:

The EU regrets "that there were many reports and allegations of media restrictions as well as harassment of opposition parties and NGOs in the run-up to the elections and on election day, and that procedures during the electoral campaign did not meet international standards and commitments voluntarily assumed by Moscow," the statement said. "The EU hopes that investigations will clarify the accuracy of these allegations."

Hmm. I bet that scared President, now also, presumably, Duma deputy, Putin.

The EU seems to have abandoned its strong feelings about democracy and European values as far as Russia is concerned.

In a similar incident last week, the Portuguese presidency put out a critical statement three days after the arrest of opposition activists in Russia, including the former chess champion Garry Kasparov, only to withdraw it and issue a milder version without explanation.

Incidentally, I do not call 63 per cent of the vote (more or less what was expected before Putin went on a huge campaign) on a 64 per cent turn-out a landslide. By Russian standards that is an abject defeat. I have not yet managed to see the full figures so have not blogged on the subject but I understand in Chechnya the vote for United Russia was over 99 per cent on a 99.5 per cent turn-out. Good to know that somebody in that country is paying attention to what matters.

President Sarkozy’s behaviour is particularly odd as he has been, since elected, a lot tougher in his dealings or, at least, conversations with Putin and his henchmen than his predecessor President Chirac was. One cannot help wondering what motivated him to break ranks so visibly.

Sarkozy[i-Sarkozy]Sweet harmony is not proving to be the rule when it comes to considering the EU constitution. And, while Merkel might have designs of her own, and Daniel Hannan has worked it all out, it seems that French presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy has just lobbed a hand grenade into the love-fest.

Chiding the 18 countries that have ratified the treaty for their recent meeting in Madrid, he express his "sadness" that for the first time since 1945, "European countries convened to discuss the future of Europe without France." Declared Sarkozy,"This is not my idea of Europe. To repeat that everything will be OK and change nothing will lead ... to a catastrophe."

The man himself was speaking in Strasbourg to a crown of thousands, unveilling his "European agenda" where, according to AP via IHT he warned that efforts to revive the treaty in its current form were bound to fail.

If he is elected French president, he told the crowd, he would propose a new, simplified treaty that would scrap decision-making by unanimity and create the position of an EU president that would rotate every 2½ years. That, of course, goes right against the grain of the "treaty-lite" and would involve changes that would require the signing and ratification process to start all over again – a huge can of worms for the "colleagues".

And, to add fuel to the flames, Sarkozy said Europe (he means the European Union) was in a "serious, profound crisis". But he rejected the idea that the crisis had been triggered by the French and Dutch "no" votes. The French rejected the constitution because they felt the EU no longer protected them and they were the victims of globalization.

Nailing the coffin down on any prospect of agreement, he then repeated that Turkey had no place in the EU "because it's not a European country". He also spoke against accepting more enlargement, telling the by now cheering crowd that "It is paradoxical that a constitution is being enforced on Europe while its identity is being diluted by enlargements that have no end."

Seem to me that those who see the EU constitution as being a done deal are being a little bit premature. Sarkozy, with a presidential election to win, is pandering to a national agenda and, as always, "Europe" takes second place.

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