Did Sarkozy's stint change the EU for good?

IHT

Six months after France illuminated the Eiffel Tower in a deep cobalt blue to open its European Union presidency, the Czech Republic - which takes over the job in January - asked privately if the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, would take part in a handover ceremony.

Sarkozy, came the polite but firm reply, does not want to be the person who switches off the giant neon EU symbol on the famous Paris landmark. The anecdote, relayed privately by an informed official, is telling. With his hyperactive political style, Sarkozy has dominated the European stage at a time of crisis and is making no secret of his reluctance to leave the limelight. "I have loved this job," Sarkozy told the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday in his farewell presidency appearance there.

What is less clear is whether his eventful six-month presidency has fundamentally changed the EU - and French attitudes to it - or simply given a restless leader a tool to burnish his image at home and abroad.

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  Few dispute that the French presidency had its successes. Although Moscow failed to implement the letter of a cease-fire in Georgia negotiated by Sarkozy, it did enough for the EU to resume formal partnership talks with Russia, the bloc's vast neighbor, key energy supplier and trading partner.


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  Then, as the international economic crisis took hold, Paris filled part of the vacuum left by the outgoing U.S. administration, helping convene a meeting of the most powerful global economies and coordinating a European response.


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  And last week Sarkozy persuaded all 27 EU nations to sign up to binding laws on how to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent by 2020. Despite making compromises to industry, this still left Europe in the vanguard of efforts to curb global warming.


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  Sarkozy's leadership has helped to reconnect the French with the EU, just three years after France - a founding member of the bloc - shocked itself and others by rejecting the EU's constitution in a referendum. In a BVA poll published Tuesday, 56 percent of the French approved of Sarkozy's EU presidency, while his domestic policies remain deeply unpopular.


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  Sarkozy has also surprised some by forging an alliance with Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, even inviting him to a meeting of countries that use the euro, which Britain has shunned.


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  Not everyone is pleased of course. Relations between Paris and Berlin are frosty. At a meeting in London with Brown two weeks ago, Sarkozy made clear his exasperation with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, for her reluctance to bolster government spending further to combat the slowdown, according to one diplomat who attended the meeting but is not authorized to speak about it.

"For six months he felt like the king of the world - Bush was a lame-duck president and he was in the driving seat of the EU," Moïsi said. "Now Obama is coming in and he is no longer president of Europe. He will not accept such a demise."

In some ways, Sarkozy has already forged a legacy. By lobbying for the G20 meeting in Washington in November and setting the stage for a follow-up in London in April, he has created a precedent that his successors cannot ignore. If the global economy continues to deteriorate, his ability as crisis manager might be called on once more

Sarkozy's main challenge...will be to maintain good relations with Britain, repair ties with Germany and then establish a close link with Obama. "Managing that equation will be key to his ability to remain influential beyond the presidency."

There is, however, a debate over what lessons to draw from the last six months. One of the deals struck under the French EU presidency was to pave the way for a second Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty - an accord meant to strengthen the EU as a world player that was rejected by the Irish in a first referendum last June.

Beyond squabbles, the main question, observers say, is whether recent crises suggest that Europe can operate as a bloc to balance the rise of the growing economic powers in Asia. Persistent divisions have weakened the EU's hand with Moscow. Tensions between France and Britain, and between France and Germany, have strained the EU's response to the economic crisis. In Paris, diplomats are optimistic. As one senior official put it Tuesday: "The French presidency has shown that when Europe wants, it can have a voice."