[Comment] Why we must stop Napoleonism in Europe

PETER SAIN LEY BERRY

18.07.2008 @ 09:27 CET

EUOBSERVER / COMMENT - I am not sure how comfortable Mr Sarkozy, the French president, feels with his image as a modern-day Napoleon. Ostensibly, of course, he rejects such comparisons as absurd, mere journalistic froth, a sign that the writer hasn't the depth to reach any more serious conclusions. But I wonder whether he isn't also secretly flattered by the comparison?

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At any rate, he shows no sign of changing his Napoleonic stance. This week has delivered a rich crop of 'Sarkozy as Napoleon' episodes, as the French president swaggered about the European stage, bullying nations and cajoling their leaders in pursuit of his grand designs.

First up was last Sunday's Mediterranean Union summit. Succumbing to the imperial will, leaders from 43 nations assembled in Paris for a purpose that no one still seems very clear about. To be sure, there is the usual list of economic and environmental projects - institutional arrangements even - but worthy as these are, the grandeur of the occasion and Mr Sarkozy's rhetoric suggested more.

The Mediterranean was, the French president opined, the source of "all faith, all reason, all culture." This was a very curious thing to say in modern times - such an antique view of the world might have come from the mouth of Napoleon himself, setting off to invade Egypt. It dismisses the faith and culture not only of Asia but of much of Africa too. Was it Alexander that brought Hinduism to India, I wonder?

Will subjecting the leaders of Israel and Palestine to such rhetoric bring us any closer to peace in the Middle East? Will the Mediterranean Union create a role for Turkey that might induce it to accept some lesser membership of the European Union? Personally, I doubt it. Without diplomacy such grand gestures soon exhaust themselves and diplomacy is not the French President's strongest suit.

Napoleon was privileged to have the services of Talleyrand, possibly the greatest diplomatic strategist who has ever lived, as his foreign minister. Bernard Kouchner, who today fills the same position, is positively maladroit by comparison, as a clunking intervention before the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty (widely believed to have driven many undecided voters into the No camp) showed.

Whether Mr Sarkozy might have repaired relations on his forthcoming 'listening' visit to Dublin on 21 July nevertheless remained a possibility until his extraordinary outburst that Ireland would have to vote again on the Treaty. Brian Cowen, the Irish leader, is reported to be "boiling" at this attempt at coercion.

To show that he meant what he said, Mr Sarkozy has also let it be known that he will personally veto any further European enlargement until the Lisbon provisions are in place.

On the other side of the continent, Croatia, another small nation that hopes to accede to the European Union in 2010, is feeling the Napoleonic heel.

The week before such bullying had worked on the Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, who had earlier said that it would be pointless now to sign off the Lisbon treaty but made a rapid u-turn after meeting the French president.

I suspect that Mr Cowen is made of sterner stuff and will say no more to Mr Sarkozy than he has already said to the European Council, while underlining, as politely as he can muster, the difficulties that France is causing in Dublin. As Talleyrand himself might have pointed out, this isn't the first time that a diplomatic initiative has been lost through a surfeit of zeal.

Indeed nothing that I have heard or seen since the Irish referendum result causes me to alter my own view that Lisbon - as a legal treaty text - is dead. The treaty requires ratification by all 27 member states to enter force. In Ireland that means a referendum. Given the size of the No vote, it is not realistic, however much Sarkozy may bluster, to suppose that Ireland could vote again in under seven years, regardless of how many neutrality protocols or commissioners are added to the treaty. There is no magic way forwar. There are no rabbits in Mr Brian Cowen's hat. The sooner that this is realised, the sooner we shall all make progress.

Various people have suggested a new and simpler constitutional treaty that will introduce the union to some fundamental democratic reforms. I support the idea of such a treaty. I like to think that the Irish electorate would support it too. But such a treaty would take some years to negotiate. In any case it would be an addition to, not a substitute for, Lisbon. Nevertheless, it is an initiative the French president could usefully pursue.

If Mr Sarkozy's diplomacy were subtle, he might also argue that while Lisbon - the legal treaty text - is dead, that doesn't mean that its provisions cannot be resurrected as a basis on which states can voluntarily agree to co-operate. After all, 27 member state governments have agreed to these provisions; 27 member states can therefore agree that they will act as though Lisbon had been ratified.

That is not to defy the Irish electorate - or indeed popular opinion elsewhere in Europe - because the states would then be implementing provisions that had no legal force and which therefore could be terminated at any time. No-one would be 'locked-in' by such an arrangement.

Any government could withdraw its co-operation if it felt that it was in its interests to do so. That would be a powerful force on other states to act carefully and to heed the desires of national electorates.

That we need to pay more attention to such electorates is shown by yet another of Sarkozy's Napoleonic offerings in which he endorsed Mr Barroso for a second five year term as European Commission President, commencing 2009.

Mr Barroso has many fine qualities, but the practice is that the choice of commission president will follow the European Parliament's political majority. We shall not know what this will be until after the 2009 elections. The people's wishes, expressed through the ballot box, must be respected. They must not be imperiously pre-empted.

That is why we need a new democratic treaty. To allow citizens to choose their leaders; to give the people the chance to reverse policies and institutional changes of which they disapprove; to stop national presidents pre-empting European elections. To stop, in a word, Napoleonism.

The author is an independent commentator on European affairs