A crowded marriage

Civitas, 9 February 2009

If last weeks’ British wildcat strikes were redolent of protectionism, comments evoking similar feelings made by the French President have proved inflammatory to Prague, writes Lara Natale. Czech Prime Minister/incumbent EU President Mirek Topolánek has suggested that they may even end up contributing to the Czech Republic’s existing disinclination to ratify the Lisbon Treaty.

Nicolas Sarkozy made a speech on Thursday 5th February suggesting that the decolonisation of French car companies should be stopped and the companies relocalised:
“If you build a Renault plant in India to sell Renaults to Indians, that’s justified, but if you build a factory, without saying the company’s name, in the Czech Republic to sell cars in France, that’s not justified”.
(Carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen has a plant in the Czech Republic.)
This was President Sarkozy’s attempt to appease French people, who took to streets in their masses in late January, by proving he is taking action to protect their livelihoods in the face of the global economic crisis. Sarkozy had already implied he thought the Czech EU presidency was being too passive in its reaction to the current economic climate and its impact upon the manufacturing industry; as redundancies continue to be made across the European Union, member states are beginning to let their marriage to the EU take a back seat and are reverting to an every-man-for-himself approach, holding on to as much sovereignty as EU legislation will permit so as to limit the impact of the recession on them.
Topolánek’s riposte: “If someone wanted to really jeopardise the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, he could not have chosen a better way and a better time”. Of course, the Czech Republic has yet to ratify the document (a parliamentary vote will take place on 17th February), hence were Sarkozy to go ahead with his plans, it could very well undermine Czech MPs’ already fragile support thereof. Prague took the matter even further by taking the unusual step of making an official statement: “The attempts to use the financial crisis to introduce such forms of protectionism and protective measures may slow down and threaten the revival of the European economy”.
It cannot be forgotten that in addition to the Czech Republic, the other two countries on whom a decision on the Lisbon Treaty is pending are Ireland and Poland. Poland has said they will take whatever stance Ireland adopts in its second referendum, due this summer, so Ireland is widely seen as the key decision maker. An editorial in European Voice argues that “It would be wrong to use the financial crisis to scare the Irish into approving the Lisbon treaty, using Iceland as a frightening example.” European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso identified similarities between the two countries’ situations, citing Ireland’s saving grace as the euro which had acted as a “very important shield”. Other cynics have taken the comparison further by proclaiming there is little more to differentiate Iceland and Ireland than one letter and six months.
Evidently, in light of such multifaceted tensions, the future of the Lisbon Treaty is still anything but certain.
In the event that the Lisbon Treaty is ratified according to plan, the Mail on Sunday reported yesterday that Tony Blair is poised to become the first President of the EU after it emerged that President Sarkozy is determined to help him win the post. A senior aide to Sarkozy – Alain Minc – told a private gathering of senior British and French politicians: “When the Lisbon Treaty is ratified, Europe will move into a new phase. Europe will need a strong leader and Nicolas Sarkozy will nominate Tony Blair for the position. We have to unite and say to Mrs Merkel that we cannot afford not to have Tony Blair, who will be a strong figurehead, is entirely respected around the world and will be a commanding leader at the helm of Europe.”
Mr Minc seems to suggest that in the present rough-patch member states are going through in their marriage with the European Union, the re-taking of vows under the guise of unanimous ratification of the Lisbon Treaty and the appointment of a permanent figurehead to represent them collectively, might provide a more solid base upon which to build a future, more harmonious relationship.
However, reality is rarely so romantic. In an ironic twist of fate the man in pole position for this new role presiding over what hopes to be a new world ‘superpower’ is a former Prime Minister of Britain, a country so eurosceptic that it was the only member state that the Entropa artist left it out of his artwork altogether. All the same, you could argue that the United Kingdom with its four factions- and the omnipresent tensions between them- is the only member state that structurally speaking can be considered a microcosm of the European Union. Yet, it was Blair who brought devolution home to Britain.