France sets ambitious foreign policy agenda

Date: 29/06/2000

By Shada Islam

Fears that eastward enlargement and internal reform priorities could distract the EU from its ambitions of becoming a powerful global player look set to be allayed during the next six months.

The French presidency has set an ambitious foreign policy agenda for the Union which will keep EU diplomats - and their foreign counterparts - working overtime until the end of 2000.

Diplomats say France has set two key foreign policy goals: consolidating strategic partnerships with the Union's 'near abroad', including the southern Mediterranean states, Russia and Ukraine, while at the same time building stronger political and economic contacts with international regional groupings, including many in Asia, the African, Caribbean and Pacific group of countries and the Southern African Development Community.

Efforts will also continue to launch a new round of global trade discussions in the World Trade Organisation and regular summits are planned with the US, Canada, Japan and China.

Meanwhile, preparations are under way for the special summit with leaders from ex-Yugoslavia, excluding Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, proposed by French President Jacques Chirac.

While Portugal succeeded in holding a first-ever summit with African leaders in Cairo in April this year, France is hoping to organise an unprecedented meeting of EU and Middle East leaders in Marseille in mid-November. The focus on the southern Mediterranean is no surprise given Paris' long-standing demands for a stronger and more pro-active Union role in the region.

But whether France will be able to convene a southern Mediterranean summit depends on the progress, or lack of it, in the different tracks covered by the wider Middle East peace talks. However, even if a Euro-Med heads-of-state meeting has to be called off, ministers from the two regions are set to meet in Marseille on 15 November to relaunch their five-year-old dialogue and adopt a Euro-Med charter for peace and stability.

Relations with Asia are also top of the French foreign policy agenda, starting with a summit with Japan in Tokyo on 20 July. This will be followed by EU ministerial participation in a regional forum on security issues organised by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) on 27 July in Bangkok, to be followed by a meeting with South Korea the next day. Seoul will send a representative to the Asean regional forum and, like the Union, will participate in the annual dialogue which Asean holds with its key foreign partners at the end of July.

A third summit of Asian and EU leaders will be held in Seoul on 20 October under the four-year-old process of Asia Europe Meetings (Asem). Diplomats from both regions are hoping the encounter will inject new momentum into Asem. But China, supported by several other Asian countries, is reluctant to back Union calls for a stronger political and security dialogue, preferring to keep the focus on economic and cultural questions.

A breakthrough ministerial meeting with Asean in Laos is expected to follow immediately after the Asem encounter. This will be the first region-to-region discussion between Asean and the EU following the entry of Burma into Asean in 1997. Having succeeded in toughening a range of Union sanctions against Rangoon in April this year, the UK and the Netherlands have given their go-ahead to the ministerial talks with Asean which are expected to relaunch stalled political and economic discussions between the two sides.

Summits with China and Russia are planned respectively for 23 October in Beijing and 30 October in Paris. Ministerial talks with the Southern African Development Council are scheduled for the end of November in Botswana, followed by summit meetings with the US on 18 December in Washington and with Canada in Ottawa the following day.

Article forms part of a survey on the French EU Presidency, July-December 2000.