Sarkozy calls for political EU less bent on trade values

In a landmark speech before the European Parliament, French President Nicolas Sarkozy warned that Europeans were going through a “deep identity crisis” caused by excessive ‘mercantilisation’ and called on the EU to open up to more political debates.

“When the people say ‘no’, we cannot say the people are wrong. We must ask why they said ‘no’,” Sarkozy told Parliament on Tuesday, referring to the referendum debacle which saw the French reject the proposed EU Constitution in 2005.

Addressing MEPs in Strasbourg, Sarkozy said this was due to a broad perception among citizens that Europe “had become indifferent to the difficulties of their daily lives” and “had ceased being a promise and become a menace”.

“Europe cannot just be a machine, an administrative machine, a legal machine, a machine for issuing rules, regulations, directives, and a machine for manufacturing constraints, rules and procedures”, he said.

The French President repeated earlier calls for Europe to offer more protection to citizens and businesses against the pressures of globalisation, and criticised “a world threatened by ‘uniformisation’ […] where mercantile values tend to dominate all others”.

“The peoples of Europe are undergoing a deep identity crisis […] It is a crisis linked to globalisation and the ‘mercantilisation’ of the world”, Sarkozy insisted.

But he also said Europe could face up to these challenges if it chooses to open up the debate and become more political. “In the democracy that we want to build, the word ‘protection’ must not be banished,” he said.

“We have to be capable of debating what could become a true community preference,” he said, adding: “In a democracy, one has to be able to debate about everything: about monetary policy, about budget policy, about trade policy, about industrial policy, about fiscal policy, about all the policies, whatever they may be.”

‘A more protective Europe’ has been a recurring theme in the French political debate since the failed referendum of 2005. Sarkozy said he will make it the guiding principle of France’s EU presidency in the second half of 2008.

As is often the case, Sarkozy’s words stirred heated reactions among MEPs. Gilles Savary, a French Socialist MEP, called the speech “political bluff” and doubted that it would lead to “anything concrete”. “In this regard, one can only be disappointed by his imprecision concerning the priorities of the French [EU] presidency and on the absence of references to social Europe and public services”.

“Sarkozy’s rhetoric, like that of Blair before him, impressed his audience but ultimately it is his actions which will speak louder than his words,” said Graham Watson, leader of the liberal democrats (ALDE) in Parliament.

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