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France: Painted into Its Own EU Corner?
French President Jacques Chirac slammed the Bush administration June 28 for intervening in European foreign policy after Bush said that Turkey should be allowed into the European Union. France has painted itself into a corner, and Chirac’s reaction illustrates its fear of losing influence within the EU. While in Istanbul on June 27, U.S. President George W. Bush supported a long-term goal of his Turkish hosts, saying, "I will remind the people of this good country that you ought to be given a date by the EU for your eventual acceptance into the EU." The next day, French President Jacques Chirac sharply criticized the Bush statement, saying the U.S. president had "ventured into territory that was not his concern ... and it would be like me telling the United States how to run its affairs with Mexico." It is not difficult to understand the French reaction. France sees the European Union as a platform upon which it can stand and hold onto a global role much more powerful than it would otherwise possess.

Unfortunately for Paris, that has not been the way things have worked out recently. Most of the rest of Europe -- Germany and Belgium excepted -- views French power with even more trepidation than they do U.S. power. After all, the United States is Europe’s security guarantor, and U.S. bullying does not affect them much at all at home. French control, in contrast, deeply affects every national decision they make. France is a founding member of the European Union; the United States does not belong to the EU -- and it is in a different hemisphere. The states of Central Europe -- only 15 years out of the Soviet bloc -- are doubly concerned about another country’s calling the shots for them. Seven of these states joined the EU on May 1, and all have sided with countries such as Denmark and the United Kingdom against France on issues of how strong or -- in their minds -- how weak the European Union’s central institutions should be.

Turkey is in a similar situation. Like the Central European states, Turkey wants access to the EU for economic purposes. Most of its trade is with Europe, and it would much rather link its infrastructure (and its future) to Europe than to the former Soviet Union or the Middle East. This does not, however, mean that Turkey wants to be swallowed up by a European entity that speaks for the French and not for the Turks. In fact, much to Turkey’s glee -- and that of several EU members -- this battle has already been won. In the draft constitution agreed to in June, the Europeans went with the least restrictive language possible, ensuring national sovereignty and adopting a voting structure that would allow the rest of Europe to easily overrule French ambitions. Add the fact that Turkey already has about 10 million more people than France and three times France’s population growth rate -- and that Europe’s new decision-making process is loosely based on population -- and it is no surprise that Chirac’s Union for a Popular Movement party strongly opposes Turkish entry into the EU. A Turkey in Europe would further upset decades of Paris’ well-laid plans. Consequently, the EU is shaping up to be a massive -- if sophisticated -- free-trade zone, not a superstate.

This has already shown up in EU "foreign policy." In 2003, the Iraqi war split the EU down the middle with most members and prospective members lining up to oppose French attempts to make EU war policy its own. With Turkey in the European club, the French would have an even harder time achieving what is fast becoming an unattainable goal: a Europe for the French. For France this means not only the end of a dream, but also the beginning of a nightmare. France has failed to make the rest of the European states its partners -- with the possible exception of Belgium and Germany -- and it is now bound into an arrangement that will impinge upon its own movement. The United States has noticed, and the United States and France know full well that adding Turkey to the mix would only compound Paris’s newfound problem. All of this meshes perfectly with Washington’s geopolitics. A Europe that is a massive economic power is one whose interests are broadly aligned with those of the United States. A Europe that has strong respect for national sovereignty is one that can never become a unified political entity capable of challenging the United States regionally -- much less globally. All the more reason for the Bush administration to push formally for Turkish acceptance. And all the more reason for Chirac to hate -- and fear -- the idea.
Posted by: Gromky 2004-07-02
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=37007