If you were to give Nicolas Sarkozy the benefit of the doubt, you would say that one reason for his current diplomatic foray into the Middle East is his deeply held belief that the European Union needs strong, energetic, high-profile leadership to make its influence count in the world.
If you were to take a more sceptical view, you would say that Sarkozy enjoyed running France’s six-month EU presidency so much that, when it came to an end on December 31, he simply couldn’t bring himself to move out of the spotlight.
For the Czech Republic, which took over the EU presidency a week ago, the temptation to cough politely and say to Sarkozy, “Excuse me, pal, it’s our turn now”, must be strong. After all, Sarkozy’s trip to the Middle East is likely to be interpreted in many parts of the world as a signal that the Czechs are not to be taken too seriously when it comes to negotiating and speaking on the EU’s behalf.
But Czech feathers are not the only ones ruffled by the French president’s trip. His visit to the Middle East has coincided with one from an EU delegation led by Karel Schwarzenberg, the Czech foreign minister, and including Javier Solana, the EU’s foreign policy chief, and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the bloc’s external relations commissioner.
How seriously are Solana and Ferrero-Waldner, as the institutional expressions of EU foreign policy, going to be taken while Sarkozy is on his travels? One or two other large EU countries, such as Germany and Italy, are getting worried that Sarkozy, in his desire to shake the bloc out of its allegedly lethargic ways, risks shaking it up to the point of damaging its institutions.
One Sarkozy-designed institution that is unlikely to prosper as a result of the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza is the EU’s new Union for the Mediterranean, which the French president launched last July. This structure groups all 27 EU states as well as the bloc’s neighbours in the Balkans, north Africa and the Middle East, including Israel. It was always going to be vulnerable to the first outbreak of trouble over the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
With Israel not proving particularly receptive at the moment to Sarkozy’s call for a ceasefire in Gaza, it may not be long before we know just how serious the damage to the Union for the Mediterranean will be.
Across the globe: Gideon Rachman and his FT colleagues debate international affairs on