Sovereignty Blog

France’s Next President? (DAVID TWERSKY, August 8, 2006, NY Sun)

One can almost see President Chirac getting off a plane, waving a piece of white paper, and describing the draft Security Council resolution aiming to halt hostilities in Lebanon as ” peace in our time.” But imagine if the current crisis in Lebanon could have occurred on the watch of a different French president, a leader wedded to neither the reflexive anti-Americanism nor the pro-Arab policies of Mr. Chirac.

Impossible? Not really. The French elect a new president next spring, and under the Fifth Republic, all foreign policy powers are vested in the presidency. As it happens, at least one serious contender is significantly more pro-Israel and pro-American than the rest of the pack. That candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, has maintained a position on the Lebanon war completely different than the others. [...]

As opposed to the pathetic comments of Foreign Minister Douste-Blazy about Iran, Mr. Sarkozy insisted that “There are more than suspicions about the links between Hezbollah and Iran [and that] Iran is not the only country concerned.” Instead of repeated calls like that of Mr. de Villepin for an “immediate cease-fire,” Mr. Sarkozy, urged, Israel “to maintain levelheadedness and restraint.”

Finally, the July 20, 2006 Le Monde carried a report of a public meeting at which the visiting Israeli minister recounted his meeting earlier with Mr. Sarkozy. According to the report, Minister Zeev Boim said that Mr. Sarkozy asked him, “How much time does the State of Israel require to complete the work?”

Given how isolated W was supposedly leaving us by attacking Iraq without the permission of other Western states it’s pretty amusing to watch them all elect leaders who follow his political line.

The Hague says constitution is ‘dead’ (Mark Beunderman, 1/11/06, EUOBSERVER)

The Dutch foreign minister Bernard Bot has said the EU constitution is “dead” for the Netherlands, rejecting EU leaders’ recent pleas for a resuscitation of the charter.

After meeting his Austrian counterpart Ursula Plassnik in The Hague, Mr Bot stated on Wednesday (11 January) “we have discussed the constitution, which for the Netherlands is dead,” according to press reports.

Austria, which currently holds the EU presidency, aims at a revival of the treaty, with its leader Wolfgang Schussel declaring on Monday “the constitution is not dead. It is in the middle of a ratification process.”

Managing Expectations: Will Merkel’s visit end the transatlantic rift? (Victorino Matus, 01/06/2006, Weekly Standard)

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, there have been repeated attempts to mend the transatlantic rift–with middling success at the state level. (On the other hand, says one German counterterrorism expert, “we have always been close on the working level” in the war on terror.) But it wasn’t until November 22, when the chancellery switched hands, that analysts saw a serious opportunity for diplomatic change.

But what sort of change can we realistically expect? “The issue will be substance versus style,” said Karen Donfried last October at a German Marshall Fund symposium. Donfried, the senior director at GMF, pointed out that “Schröder did one thing and said another. Sure they were helping us out–a lot, even–but by ‘merely’ what he said, he was delegitimizing Operation Iraqi Freedom.” She continued, “If Merkel simply continues doing what is being done but says positive things and explains honestly [to the German people] why they are helping, that would be hugely significant.”

Europe just needs to go to school on Kofi Annan if it wants to heal the rift–the Secretary now does whatever we tell him to and we get along fine.

Barroso runs Britain, radio poll says (Andrew Rettman, 1/04/06, EU Observer)

European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso is the UK’s most powerful man, according to a BBC radio opinion poll. [...]

The eurosceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP) pointed out that Mr Barroso is an unelected official.

“Of course it is the only chance you’ll get to vote for him or for that matter against him”, UKIP leader Roger Knapman indicated.

But ruling Labour party politicians dismissed the idea that the EU runs the UK as an “urban myth.”

The Tories will be the majority again when sentences start: “The eurosceptic UK Conservative Party…”

Irish most happy, Brits most unhappy with EU (Teresa Küchler, 12/20/05, EUOBSERVER)

Support for the EU is declining among the union’s citizens, according to a new commission survey, while Europeans generally back the idea of an EU constitution and reject Turkish EU accession.

The “Autumn Standard Eurobarometer”, presented on Tuesday (20 December) reveals that an average of 50 percent of European citizens consider EU membership of their country “a good thing”, down from 54 percent in spring this year. [...]

Of the 25 member states, Austria and the UK appear the most eurosceptic, with just 32 percent of Austrians and 33 percent of Brits saying EU membership is a good thing for their country, followed by Latvia (36 percent), Finland (38 percent) and Sweden and Hungary (both 39 percent).