26 June 2008-06-26

FRANCE - President Nicolas Sarkozy is still hoping to push through ambitious projects when France takes the helm of the European Union next week despite Ireland's rejection of the EU reform treaty.

Sarkozy had hoped to concentrate the six-month presidency on key areas such as immigration, European defence, energy and climate change and his cherished Mediterranean Union project when France takes over from Slovenia on July 1.
But France will now have to spend a lot of time dealing with the institutional crisis sparked by Irish voters' rejection earlier this month of the so-called Lisbon Treaty that was meant to streamline EU institutions as the bloc expands.

Ireland, the only EU state constitutionally obliged to hold a referendum on the charter that must be ratified by all 27 member states, rejected the treaty by 53.4 percent.
EU leaders have asked Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen to report back in October on what he thinks the best options are for the treaty.

In the meantime, France says it will not try to steamroll through a solution to the constitutional conundrum. "Forcing it (the Lisbon treaty) through won't be on the agenda," French European Affairs Minister Jean-Pierre Jouyet said this week, while also confirming that Sarkozy will travel to Ireland on July 11 to "get a sense of the discontent and questions of the Irish."

"Do they want guarantees on their neutrality, reassurance on their religious values, notably on abortion, guarantees on aid? Right now I don't know," he admitted.
"Then we must analyse the consequences of the Irish demands, knowing that the great majority of EU member states are not in favour of reopening the treaty" for alterations, Jouyet said.

"An important part of the French (EU) presidency's work will be to put the
27 back on the rails," he concluded. That aside, Sarkozy will also try to push through a string of projects, the most high-profile of which is his proposed Mediterranean Union, which he hopes to launch at a major summit in Paris on July 13.

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