Even before he was elected as president of France in 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy made it crystal-clear that he didn’t want Turkey to join the European Union - ever.  Now concerns are growing in Brussels that Sarkozy is contemplating a formal Franco-German initiative next year to offer Turkey a “privileged partnership” instead of, as now, the long-term prospect of full EU membership.

The idea of a “privileged partnership” has been around for a good few years.  Sarkozy likes it, and so does Germany’s ruling Christian Democratic party.  It also appeals to Angela Merkel, the CDU chancellor.  However, Merkel has up to now taken a nuanced approach, recognising that Germany, along with other EU countries, recognised Turkey as an official candidate for membership in 1999.  A responsible country cannot just wriggle out of agreements made in good faith, Merkel believes. 

The difference now is that, after last month’s German election, the Social Democrats - more sympathetic to Turkey’s aspirations - are out of government and have been replaced by the Free Democrats, whose position on Turkey is more ambiguous.  The balance of opinion in Berlin is changing.  Sarkozy may try to seize the opportunity to line up the new German government behind the concept of the ”privileged partnership”, according to EU policymakers.

Needless to say, Turkey would dismiss an offer along these lines as an insult.  There is no legal foundation for a “privileged partnership”, says Egemen Bagis, Turkey’s chief negotiator on EU matters.   You are either in the EU or not in the EU.  You cannot be half-pregnant, Bagis once told me.

The US would undoubtedly dislike such an initiative, too.  Ignoring criticism that it’s none of their business, both Democratic and Republican administrations have always encouraged the EU to accept Turkey as a full member.

Alas, Turkey’s EU membership bid is in serious trouble, anyway.  The European Commission tried to put a brave face on matters this week in its annual report on Turkey.  But the inescapable truth is that out of the 35 negotiation chapters, or policy areas, that a country needs to complete in order to join the EU, Turkey has opened 11, of which only one has been provisionally closed.  Another 12 chapters have been either formally frozen by the EU, or informally blocked by France with support from others opposed to Turkey’s bid.  The entire process risks grinding to a halt.

In December EU leaders will discuss Turkey’s failure to heed their calls to open its ports and airports to ships and aircraft from the Greek Cypriot-controlled government of Cyprus.  In theory they could take a harsh line and more or less abandon Turkey’s EU entry talks.

I doubt this will happen - Sweden, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency until December 31, is friendly towards Turkey, and many other countries think it would be crazy to adopt such a position just when negotiations on a Cyprus settlement are reaching a critical moment.

But towards the end of the first half of 2010, the picture may well look different.  April is the key month.  If the Cyprus talks are deadlocked by the time of next April’s Turkish Cypriot presidential election, and if he can get Germany on board, Sarkozy may be tempted to unveil his “privileged partnership” proposal.

In December 1984 western governments detected the first signs of potentially far-reaching change in the Soviet Union when Mikhail Gorbachev, three months before he took over as Communist party leader, went on a trip to London.  Gorbachev greatly impressed Margaret Thatcher, the then prime minister, who saw him as an articulate, vigorous man with whom, famously, she could “do business”.

Is a Gorbachev moment about to happen in European-Chinese relations?  In two weeks’ time, Xi Jinping, China’s vice-president, is due to pay a visit to Europe and, among other activities, spend some time at the European Commission in Brussels.  The parallels with December 1984 are intriguing. Continue reading "A “Gorbachev moment” in European-Chinese relations?"

Like it or not, the European Union faces the distinct possibility that the latest United Nations-mediated effort at producing a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus dispute will fail.  From a EU perspective, would that be a disaster?  Or just a bit depressing and annoying?  Disaster is a strong word, but the consequences of failure would unquestionably be serious.

Talks between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots have been going on for the past 12 months, and the next round is due to be held on Thursday - having been postponed for a week, because of a row over some Greek Cypriot pilgrims who were trying to visit a church in Turkish Cypriot territory.

Nothing much has changed in the Cyprus dispute since 1974, when Turkish forces occupied the north of the island in response to a Greek-inspired coup aimed at enosis, or the union of Cyprus with Greece.  Turkish troops and settlers are still there in the north, but the Greek Cypriots control the internationally recognised government of the island.  What is more, they secured entry into the EU in 2004.  As a result, their 26 EU partners are virtually compelled to support them in anything related to the Cyprus dispute, even if some EU governments privately fume at Greek Cypriot behaviour.

Greek Cypriot public opinion seems to take the view that it would not matter much if the talks were to break down.  When the most recent UN-brokered deal was put to the two communities in referendums in 2004, the Turkish Cypriots approved it by 65 to 35 per cent, but the Greek Cypriots rejected it by a crushing 76 to 24 per cent.

The Greek Cypriots should stop being complacent, however, and read the excellent report published this week by the Independent Commission on Turkey, a panel chaired by Martti Ahtisaari, Finland’s 2008 Nobel peace prize winner.  The report describes the current peace talks as probably “the last chance for a federal settlement”.  Put another way, if the talks collapse, the Greek Cypriots will be looking at a future in which Turkey’s armed forces maintain a presence on the island for the indefinite future.  Is that what they really want?

A second unwelcome consequence would be that co-operation between the EU and Nato, so important for transatlantic relations, would continue to be blocked by differences between Cyprus and Turkey.  Lastly, the collapse of the Cyprus negotiations could torpedo Turkey’s bid to join the EU.

Here it is important that certain EU member-states, above all France and Germany, which are sceptical about Turkish entry into the bloc, show responsibility.  It would be all too easy to use the collapse of the talks as an excuse to punish Turkey and bury its membership aspirations forever.  But that would be unwise.  Holding out the prospect of membership is one of the most important levers the EU possesses to steer Turkish domestic reforms in a positive direction.

If the worst happens, and the Cyprus talks break down, the EU must still keep alive Turkey’s EU accession process.

After the fall of communism in central and eastern Europe, one compelling argument for bringing the region into the European Union was that the experience of prosperity, democracy and everyday multinational co-operation would ease national and ethnic tensions there.  Who knew, perhaps eventually it would get rid of them altogether, just as France and Germany were gradually reconciled after the second world war?

A flare-up of tensions last month between Slovakia and Hungary will serve as proof, to those western Europeans who were always hostile to enlargement, that such hopes were premature.  Worse still, it will confirm them in their opinion that, by admitting the two countries in 2004, all the EU succeeded in doing was to trap a nasty virus inside its own borders.

They are wrong, in my view, but that doesn’t mean that the Slovak-Hungarian tensions should be glossed over.  The spark for the trouble was the Slovak government’s decision to deter Hungary’s head of state from attending a statue-unveiling ceremony in the ethnic Hungarian-populated part of southern Slovakia.  The statue was of Saint Stephen, Hungary’s first king, who ruled 1,000 years ago.

To many Slovaks, Hungary’s attempt to send its president to the ceremony marked yet another example of interference in a region that Hungary had ruled since the Middle Ages, until forced to cede the area after the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s collapse in 1918.  To Hungarians, however, the origins of the episode lie in the anti-Hungarian outlook of Slovakia’s coalition government, manifested in a new language law which stipulates that only Slovak can be used in most public institutions.  Thousands of ethnic Hungarians went on the streets last week to demonstrate against the law.

All this is reminiscent of the Slovak-Hungarian tensions that persisted throughout the 1990s, especially after Slovakia became an independent state in 1993 in the wake of Czechoslovakia’s break-up.  Sixteen years ago, I spent some time in the part of Slovakia where the latest troubles broke out and, re-reading what I wrote back then, it is tempting to conclude that not a great deal has changed in the meantime.

And yet that is not really so.  There are ultra-nationalist elements in Slovakia, and they are even represented in the country’s coalition government.  But overall Slovakia is more confident in its statehood.  It joined the eurozone this year and has no interest in fomenting instability in its region.  Meanwhile, Hungary has every right to take an interest in the status of ethnic Hungarian minorities in neighbouring countries.  Perhaps sometimes Hungary oversteps the mark in a rather disconcerting way, but there is never any suggestion of violence or attempted subversion.

Tensions of this kind have such deep roots that it would be silly to expect them to disappear as a result of five years of EU membership.  But in the end, the chances that they really will disappear will be much higher if Slovakia and Hungary are in the EU than outside.

What should be the top five priorities of the next European Commission?

1) Top of my list is the defence, and if possible the strengthening, of the single European market.  This is the European Union’s bedrock achievement.  It secures prosperity for its citizens, and it underpins the EU’s collective weight in the world.  Without the single market, the EU would lose not merely its cohesion but its very reason for existence.  The single market is under strain at present because of the emergency measures taken over the past year to prop up Europe’s banking system.  These have, in effect, suspended the EU’s state aid rules in this sector.  The Commission will need to be tough in making sure that EU governments do not manipulate the rules as the emergency measures are gradually withdrawn.  Meanwhile, it should continue to press the case for integrating and liberalising the EU’s service sector, which accounts for two-thirds of all EU economic activity.

2) In second place is the need to propose useful reforms to the EU’s system of financial market regulation.  I stress “useful”, because the legislative initiatives put forward so far range from very good to mediocre.  The first category includes the creation of a EU-wide systemic risk-monitoring agency and new EU supervisory authorities.  The second category includes the proposals for clamping down on hedge funds and private equity.  These had little or nothing to do with the causes of the financial crisis.  The Commission is understandably under populist political pressures to take aim at easy targets, but it needs to be more courageous and redraft its proposals.

3) Third is a sharper definition of the Commission’s climate change and energy security policies.  Under José Manuel Barroso’s leadership, the Commission has done a good job of raising the profile of these areas.  But in my view its effectiveness has been diminished by having three separate commissioners for energy, the environment and transport.  Transport policy, in particular, is considerably less “green” and less ambitious than the EU’s rhetoric implies.  The idea of appointing a “super-commissioner” for energy and climate change has been around for quite a while in Brussels.  Now is the time to put it into practice.

4) Fourth is the task of ensuring that the Commission president and the EU’s foreign policy high representative - not to mention the EU’s first full-time president - do not tread on each other’s toes and make a mess of the EU’s relations with the outside world.  I am assuming here that the Lisbon treaty will come into effect next year.  Under the treaty’s terms, the next foreign policy chief, replacing Javier Solana of Spain, will double up as Commission vice-president.  The scope for collisions with the Commission president is obvious.  Another thing that needs sorting out is whether the foreign policy job will be purely diplomatic and political in nature, or whether it will have influence over areas such as humanitarian aid, enlargement and trade.  Up to now, these have been the preserve of different commissioners, but they are clearly intimately linked with the conduct of EU foreign policy.

5) Fifth and finally - but this is just a baffled observer’s thought - it might be a good idea for the Commission to get itself a president for the next five years.  Is anyone in the European Parliament listening?

The great thing about blogging is that you learn something new almost every day.  This morning, while preparing a blog on the European Union’s foreign policy, I have learnt the French expression avaler des couleuvres, which translates literally as “to swallow grass snakes” and means “to believe anything you’re told”.

What a magnificent idiom!  I came across it in the widely followed Coulisses de Bruxelles blog of Jean Quatremer, the Brussels correspondent of the French daily Libération.  Quatremer was writing about Javier Solana’s decision to give up his job as the EU’s foreign policy high representative, a post he has held since 1999.

The sentence which contains the metaphorical grass snakes is particularly scathing about the Spanish-born Solana:  ”His ability to believe anything he’s told, and his mumbo-jumbo muttered and whispered in a mixture of Spanish, English and French, contribute to his capacity to give the impression to all his interlocutors that he agrees wholeheartedly with them…”

In defence of Solana, you could say that swallowing grass snakes and muttering mumbo-jumbo will be two of the most essential qualifications for anyone applying to replace him.  The post of EU foreign policy chief will acquire a bit more importance if the Lisbon treaty comes into force.  But it will never be powerful enough to remove European foreign policy from the control of the largest member-states - France, Germany and the UK.  Quatremer acknowledges this:  “[Solana's] genius has been never to displease member-states anxious to preserve their sovereignty…”

Lacking real power, Solana has been forced all too frequently to swallow snakes and mutter mumbo-jumbo.  But if he had attempted to spit out the snakes and talk in plain, robust language, the Chinese, Iranians and Russians, among others, would have soon found him out.

That said, Solana gives the impression of being an intelligent politician who has thought deeply about the changing nature of power in the modern world.  In a speech in London last Friday, he put it very well:  “The core dilemma of globalisation is that problems are global, but resources and legitimacy remain at the national level…  In this new world, a large part of politics can only be conducted at a continental scale.  For us in Europe, that means through the European Union…  It really is that simple: either Europe works together or we become strategically irrelevant.”

Strategically irrelevant.  That is a phrase all Europeans should reflect on.  Solana’s successor may have to put up with a mouth full of snakes, but if he can cut out the mumbo-jumbo and express himself as strikingly as that, he will be doing us all a favour.

To follow up on Monday’s blog, in which I suggested it was extremely unlikely that Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini would achieve his ambition of becoming the European Union’s next foreign policy chief, the obvious question is - well, who will get the job?

Three names keep cropping up.  One is Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, a Dutchman who has served as Nato’s secretary-general since 2004 and who is about to be replaced by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former Danish prime minister.  The second is Carl Bildt, Sweden’s foreign minister, who is another ex-premier.  The third is Olli Rehn, a Finn who is the EU’s enlargement commissioner.

I should stress that, in contrast to Frattini, none of these three is shamelessly promoting himself for the job, which Spain’s Javier Solana has held since 1999.  In fact, Bildt told a group of Brussels-based reporters visiting Stockholm last week that he didn’t want it.  This was no doubt very sensible.  It is a sad but undeniable fact that Bildt, highly experienced and intellectually brilliant though he may be, has a few too many critics and enemies for his own good.

France and Germany think he is sometimes too outspoken about Russia (after he compared Russia’s actions in Georgia last year to Nazi tactics in the 1930s, what Russia thinks of Bildt must be close to unprintable).  The Greek Cypriot-controlled government of Cyprus doesn’t care for Bildt because of his sympathy towards Turkey’s EU membership bid.  The fact that a Dane is about to get the top Nato job means that there will be less enthusiasm in EU capitals for putting a fellow Scandinavian in the EU’s most prestigious foreign policy post.  All in all, I wouldn’t buy Bildts.

Rehn is less controversial and, for that reason, a credible compromise candidate.  Like Bildt, however, he is from the Nordic area - and other EU countries may think that, with Rasmussen at Nato, that’s enough from that corner of Europe for the moment.  In addition, five years as EU enlargement commissioner may not look quite convincing enough on his CV.  My heart says “Buy Rehns” but my head says “Don’t”.

Then there is De Hoop Scheffer.  He has done a competent job at Nato, but it is murmured in Brussels that he lacks the ideas and imagination needed to make a success of the EU’s common foreign policy - often more common on paper than it is in reality.  On the other hand, the EU’s larger countries - France, Germany and the UK - would surely prefer someone who doesn’t cause them trouble.  Let’s put it this way: I’m not buying De Hoop Scheffers today, but I may dip in my wallet later.

There are two ways of looking at the imminent appointment of Jerzy Buzek, a former Polish prime minister, as the next president of the European Parliament.  The first way is to applaud Europe’s politicians for doing the right thing and giving one of the European Union’s top jobs to a man from one of the 10 former communist countries in central and eastern Europe that joined the EU in 2004-2007.  This is the highest honour yet accorded to a public figure from one of the EU’s new member-states.  Poles are justifiably proud.

The second way, however, is to be honest and recognise that the job of parliament president is about the lowest-ranking position someone could be given without its looking like an insult.  Buzek, who belongs to the legislature’s main centre-right group, won’t even hold the job for the assembly’s full five-year term: under a deal with the socialists, he will step down after two and a half years and hand over the reins to a socialist.  The fact is that, by giving this post to Buzek, older and bigger member-states in western Europe are making sure that they will get all the really big jobs when they come up for grabs later this year.

These are the European Commission presidency (already earmarked for Portugal’s José Manuel Barroso, though his reappointment to a second term is running into a few embarrassing difficulties); other top Commission portfolios, such as those covering competition, the internal market and trade; the job of EU foreign policy high representative (shortly to be vacated by Spain’s Javier Solana); and the full-time presidency of the European Council, which represents national governments.  The latter job will be created only if the EU’s Lisbon treaty is ratified by all member-states.  But assuming that it comes into existence, I will eat mon chapeau if it doesn’t go to a western European.

There is an interesting side story to all this.  Buzek’s appointment became a certainty after Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister, withdrew his candidate, Mario Mauro.  Naturally, Italy wants compensation.  Berlusconi would probably be interested in one of the big Commission jobs for Italy, but Franco Frattini, his foreign minister, has other ideas.  He would like to replace Solana as EU foreign policy chief.

The reaction in certain other EU member-states to Frattini’s ambitions is, to put it mildly, one of incredulity.  No one has forgotten Frattini’s most recent diplomatic coup - a planned visit to Iran in May that went spectacularly wrong.  Frattini had to cancel his trip at the last minute when President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad insisted on meeting him in a city where the Iranians had just announced the successful launch of a medium-range missile capable of hitting Israel.  The visit would in any case have broken the EU’s policy of avoiding high-level contacts with Iran because of its nuclear programme.

So, it’s yes to Buzek - but no, grazie to Frattini.