Say what you like about Nicolas Sarkozy, he certainly knows how to capture your attention. At a meeting in the Elysée Palace last week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it appears that the French president recommended in no uncertain terms that Avigdor Lieberman, the hardline foreign minister, should be dropped from the Israeli cabinet and replaced with Tzipi Livni, the less abrasive opposition leader.
“Grave and unacceptable!” fumed Lieberman’s spokesman – how dare the leader of one democracy interfere in the internal affairs of another?
Here in Stockholm, where Sweden has just started its six-month European Union presidency, there are mixed views on Sarkozy. On the one hand, Swedish government ministers are the first to recognise that, when France held the EU presidency at a critical moment in world affairs in the second half of 2008, Sarkozy – within the limits of the EU’s possibilities – provided vigorous and effective leadership.
On the other hand, the Swedes are more than a little suspicious that Sarkozy may be trying to delay José Manuel Barroso’s reappointment as European Commission president, in order to put pressure on him to appoint a French politician to a top portfolio in the next Commission, due to be picked in a few months’ time. Whatever portfolio the French are after, goes the thinking, it is unlikely to be good news for Europe’s commitment to competition and free trade.
Well, the French aren’t the only ones playing this game. I have spoken over recent weeks with representatives from most of the 27 EU countries, and I have yet to hear anyone say the job their country wants is that of commissioner for multilingualism (held at present by, er, Romania’s Leonard Orban).
Surely the truth is that what Sarkozy said to Netanyahu about Lieberman is what most EU leaders think – but don’t have the guts to say even privately to their Israeli counterparts. Der Spiegel, the German magazine, calls Lieberman a “pragmatic thug” - and that is one of the kinder descriptions one comes across in Europe.
It strikes me as infantile to complain that Sarkozy is “interfering” in the internal affairs of another country, when every public posture the EU has struck since Lieberman’s appointment as foreign minister makes it perfectly plain that the EU thinks Livni would be infinitely preferable to Lieberman. The EU may be right or may be wrong about that – but at least with Sarkozy you know where you are.
Across the globe: Gideon Rachman and his FT colleagues debate international affairs on