Lack of Lisbon Treaty leaves EU weak on Georgia

Although the fate of the EU’s Reform Treaty was not officially discussed at the bloc’s extraordinary summit on Georgia on 1 September, it proved to be a highly topical issue, with various top-level European politicians highlighting the importance of its entry into force if the EU is to become a more powerful global player.

Speaking at the EU Council, European Parliament President Hans-Gert Pöttering said events in Georgia dramatically underlined the necessity of the Lisbon Treaty. Notably, he pointed out that the treaty would have laid down the principle of solidarity between member states in the energy sphere. 

“For this reason as well, it is particularly important that the Lisbon Treaty should be ratified as quickly as possible,” Pöttering said. 

During a parliamentary debate on Georgia, which took place alongside the summit, EPP-ED group chairman Joseph Daul (France) added that the Lisbon Treaty would also have helped create a European defence policy – an area where, in his words, the current Georgia crisis exposed the EU’s weakness. 

The Treaty would also have created a more powerful EU high representative for foreign affairs, a full-time president of the European Council and an EU external action service. 

In a recent article published by the French daily Le Figaro, French President Nicolas Sarkozy says this would certainly have given more strength and continuity to the Union’s conduct of foreign affairs and enabled the bloc to better respond to the situation in Georgia as it “would have had the institutions it needs to cope with international crises”. 

While the EU does have a foreign policy chief – the Spaniard Javier Solana – onlookers such as Graham Watson, the leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) group in Parliament, have noted his lack of presence throughout the Georgia crisis (EURACTIV 01/09/08). 

Political analysts have underlined that the EU was lucky to have a country as big as France at its helm during the Georgia crisis as this tempered the lack of real EU leadership. 

“The EU was lucky France held the EU Presidency, because Russia agreed to engage with Mr. Sarkozy on the ceasefire. But they may not have engaged with the EU if a smaller country such as the Czech Republic were EU president, especially with its difficult bilateral relationship with Moscow as a result of its decision to host US missile defence,” said Antonio Missiroli, the director of the European Policy Centre, quoted in The Irish Times. 

Even the Polish President, who in the recent past called the Lisbon Treaty “pointless” and said he would not sign it (EURACTIV 01/07/08), spoke a very different language after the summit. 

Asked by EURACTIV if he was now more in favour of the Lisbon Treaty, Kaczynski conceded that indeed, several EU leaders had mentioned informally that the Lisbon Treaty would have given the EU better instruments to deal with challenges such as the current Georgia crisis. He then added that Ireland should hold a second referendum. 

“The situation we are facing today is the following: Ireland has to hold a new referendum, but when – I don’t know,” Kaczynski said. 

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