Prof. Dr Wolfgang Schumann's Library tagged france →  View Popular

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said his party's victory in Sunday's European elections showed that French people wanted the EU to change and has said he would come up with initiatives in that respect "in the days to come."

In a communique published Monday (8 June) on the French president's website, Mr Sarkozy said that his centre-right UMP party's victory showed French people's "recognition for the work accomplished during the French presidency of the European Union [in the second half of last year] and their support for the efforts undertaken by the government to bring to an end an unprecedented global crisis".

But the French president, who is an outspoken opponent of Turkey's entry to the European Union, did not want to highlight the strong divergence of views on this topic with Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, Le Monde reported on Thursday (28 May).

Sweden favours further EU enlargement, including to Turkey. On Monday this week, Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt told Le Figaro newspaper that the EU had "a strategic interest" in Turkey's EU integration and warned against "closing the door" to Ankara.

In the face of the persisting economic turmoil, France and Germany's leaders sent a letter to the Czech EU presidency and to the president of the European Commission on Tuesday reiterating what they see as an urgent need to reform the financial system.

"The top priority is building up the new global financial architecture. The European Union must affirm a common position and take the lead in this process," French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel wrote.

France and Germany on Thursday (12 March) agreed that the emphasis at the upcoming G20 meeting in London should be on greater financial regulation and rejected calls coming from the US to increase spending as a way to deal with the crisis.

During a meeting of their cabinets in Berlin, the two countries "underlined their determination to pursue and strengthen the co-ordination of their economic policy in the face of the financial and economic crisis and to work together so that such a crisis does not reproduce itself," reads a joint declaration of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

With Russia's backing for the G20 summit, French President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed a new security and defence arrangement between the EU, Russia and the US to be agreed at a summit mid-2009, calling both on Moscow and Washington to refrain from deploying missiles until that date.

Mr Sarkozy was speaking at a press conference on Friday (14 November) following the EU-Russia summit held in Nice, alongside his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and French President Nicolas Sarkozy - currently chairing the EU - have urged the need for a permanent EU presidency to replace the rotating system.

"We need a president of the Council [the institution representing EU member states] that does not change every six months," Mr Barroso told journalists at the end of an EU leaders' meeting in Brussels on Thursday (16 October). "To lead [EU] member states, we need a very strong presidency."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has warned Europe against falling into institutional paralysis in the wake of Ireland's rejection of the Lisbon treaty and said he hopes to propose a solution to the situation before the end of this year.

In a passionate speech in the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Thursday (10 July), Mr Sarkozy said that nothing was worse for him than "immobility" and stressed the EU should not let itself be paralysed because of yet another "institutional psycho-drama."

Paris' "absolute priority" in the next six months will be tackling climate change, notably by pushing for the adoption of legislative proposals on how to reduce CO2 emissions by 20 percent by 2020 – a goal agreed by EU leaders last year.

Harmonising the 27 member states' immigration policies and strengthening the bloc's defence capacity are the other main policy areas outlined by the president.

Under the motto "a more protective Europe", France takes over the rotating EU Presidency with an additional challenge – getting the EU out of an institutional crisis triggered by the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland.




More on this topic:






• 
  News
  
• 
  LinksDossiers
  
• 
  Analysis
  
• 
  France looks east ahead of EU Presidency (23 May 2008)
• 
  Commission further waters down Med Union proposal (21 May 2008)
• 
  France promises 'citizen-oriented' EU Presidency (16 May 2008)
• 
  France outlines EU Presidency priorities (30 August 2007)
• 
  The Portuguese Presidency: In Brief (03 August 2007)
• 
  EU Presidencies (19 April 2005)
• 
  Nicolas Sarkozy: A new style of EU Presidency? (08 May 2008)
• 
  How France intends to meet all those EU presidency expectations (20 June 2008)
• 
  Seen from America : What to expect from the French EU Presidency (20 June 2008)
• 
  Sarkozy at the wheel of Europe: What to expect from the French EU Presidency (11 June 2008)
• 
  
  July-Dec. 2008: French Presidency.
  
• 
  
  11 July: Sarkozy visit to Ireland.
  
• 
  15-16 Oct.: EU Summit (Brussels).
• 
  11- 12 Dec.: EU Summit (Brussels).





Policy Summary

Links










From 1 July to 31 December 2008, France will organise and chair the European Council meetings. The French government has already announced that its motto will be "a more protective Europe" (EurActiv 06/11/07).

Links

Policy Summary







Governments

• 
  French EU Presidency website
  
• Permanent Represenation of France to the EU: French Presidency agenda
  | FR
  
  
• Prime Minster: Europe pages
  | FR
  
• Foreign Affairs Ministry : Europe pages
  
• French Senate: Budget for the French EU presidency
  
• 
  General Secretariat for European Affairs (SGAE)
  
• 
  Permanent Represenation of France to the EU
  
• 
  Conference of Committee Chairmen of the European Parliament
  [FR]
  [DE]
  (20 May 2008)

Enlargement of the EU will come to halt if the Lisbon treaty does not enter into force, French president Nicolas Sarkozy warned member states in the aftermath of the Irish No vote last week.

"It is certain that as long as we have not solved the institutional problem, the question of enlargement is stopped de jure or de facto," he said at a press conference in Brussels on Thursday night (19 June).

But Central and eastern European EU states, traditionally favouring further EU expansion, may harm the process if they do not continue to pursue treaty ratification, said the French president.

"A certain number of countries which have some reserves on the Lisbon treaty are the most active on enlargement… the Lisbon [treaty] allows further enlargement. No Lisbon, no enlargement," he added.

EU leaders meeting in Brussels on Thursday (19 June) will spend little time discussing enlargement of the bloc, and are not expected to do more than reaffirm western Balkan countries' "European perspective" – despite greater expectations from some of the EU hopefuls.

One such country – Macedonia, an EU candidate since 2005 – has lately been indicating its readiness to start accession negotiations as soon as possible.

Macedonia had had high expectations on starting accession negotiations during Ljubljana's time at the EU helm, as Slovenia – which was part of the former Yugoslavia together with Macedonia – has made the Western Balkans' EU integration a priority of its presidency.

Moreover, not winning the announcement of a date now means that Skopje may not start negotiations this year at all, as the next EU presidency country, France, has explicitly taken Greece's side in the name row, and is not expected to put a particular emphasis on enlargement issues.