Sarkozy’s clear vision set to be put to the test

True to form, French presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy had an electrifying impact in Brussels in early September when he outlined his vision for ending the impasse on the EU constitution. The clarity of his plan for a mini-treaty containing the key institutional innovations of the constitution - to be ratified by 2008 under the French presidency - won him admiration even from those members of his audience opposed to his preference for intergovernmental co-operation over community action.

But the enthusiastic response has died down and obstacles to Sarkozy’s plan are mounting. The main thrust of his strategy is to make a package of the largely institutional elements of the constitution and avoid another referendum in France by having it ratified in parliament. His priorities reveal a preference for an EU with strong central leadership as illustrated by his call for a permanent Council president, ending the current six-month rotating presidency with its twice-yearly shift in political and geographic priorities, and an EU foreign minister to fuse the jobs of the current High Representative Javier Solana with External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner. This fits with Sarkozy’s tendency to use the power advantages of a large member state such as France to stitch up deals outside the EU’s normal institutional structures. He is the architect of the G6 group of countries which co-ordinates positions on justice issues and he has talked about extending this "co-ordinating" function of the six largest countries (France, Germany, the UK, Italy, Spain and Poland) to determine policy in foreign affairs.

Not surprisingly for a man who has built a large part of his political success on a tough line on immigration, he called for an extension of qualified majority voting, especially on judicial and criminal law matters.

Sarkozy said that there was a clear consensus on these issues in the negotiations on the constitution among Left- and Right-wing governments. Combining this with their institutional character, he argues that it is acceptable to approve them by parliamentary ratification to avoid the risk of another rejection of a new text by French voters. While Sarkozy may have the chutzpah to railroad this package through the assembly, it is less clear that the Dutch government would get away with the same tactic. Alfred Pijpers, a researcher at the Dutch Institute of International Relations, told a Brussels conference last week that not having a referendum on a new text would be "very difficult".

But there is another, larger obstacle to Sarkozy’s plan: the incoming German presidency is vehemently opposed to any cherry-picking from the constitution and wants to preserve as much of the agreed text as it possibly can. But Berlin is very attached to the Charter of Fundamental Rights - given legal force by being incorporated into the proposed constitution.

Sir Stephen Wall, a former UK permanent representative and later Tony Blair’s advisor on Europe, believes that Berlin could buy into the idea of a mini-treaty as a way of avoiding having a new round of treaty reforms blocked in future by a negative referendum in the UK. "I see real problems ahead for a British government with the Sarkozy ideas," he says, pointing out that Sarkozy’s plans go beyond institutional structures and call for extended majority voting including on tax, something which would be anathema to any British prime minister. While the likely next prime minister Gordon Brown would welcome many of the institutional advances such as the EU foreign minister and a permanent Council president, anything too ambitious would make it impossible to resist demands from a revitalised Conservative opposition under David Cameron for a referendum, especially as the next UK general elections draws nearer from 2008 onwards.

Wall believes that Brown’s mission as prime minister would be to link treaty reform negotiations to the review of EU spending and income, pencilled in for 2008-09, and to push for a grand bargain of farm reform in return for institutional changes. Given Labour’s declining electoral political position, once Brown takes over from Blair, there is little prospect of him agreeing to substantial treaty reform without movement on one of his policy priorities, reducing farm subsidies and helping developing countries through improved trade opportunities.

But would Sarkozy be prepared to put support to French farmers on the line to turn the ideas from his speech into reality?

True to form, French presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy had an electrifying impact in Brussels in early September when he outlined his vision for ending the impasse on the EU constitution. The clarity of his plan for a mini-treaty containing the key institutional innovations of the constitution - to be ratified by 2008 under the French presidency - won him admiration even from those members of his audience opposed to his preference for intergovernmental co-operation over community action.

• Primary Source