French President Nicolas Sarkozy has played down the Irish rejection of EU's Lisbon Treaty that overshadowed the French EU presidency, which began on July 1, and instead decided to attend to issues that ordinary citizens more care about.
"PROTECT" EU CITIZENS
In a statement on the French EU presidency website, Sarkozy said France will try to tackle issues such as climate change, immigration, energy, food safety, health, and economy and finance, which are "at the heart of the concerns of Europe's citizens."
He warned that the 27-nation bloc would be in danger if it did not turn more attention to issues more relevant to citizens' daily lives.
"We have to think about how we can make this Europe a means to protect Europeans in their daily lives ... We must not be afraid of this word -- 'protection'," he said.
Sarkozy's remarks came amid criticism that EU leaders have spent too much time on institutional reform and somewhat ignored the day-to-day concerns of EU citizens.
The largely incomprehensible Lisbon Treaty, rejected by the Irish voters last month, has taken EU leaders years to discuss and draft and has diverted too much attention from issues considered more important by EU citizens, analysts say.
And the endless debate over EU institutional reforms has dampened ordinary Europeans' expectation from the enlarged union.
According to a recent Euro barometer poll, only 52 percent of EU citizens consider membership to be a good thing for their country. The figure is only 48 percent in France.
Sarkozy, who has seen his support rate dropping in France, would feel pressured to play down some of his ambitious projects, including the Lisbon Treaty and the so-called "Union for the Mediterranean," and begin to address more urgent issues, analysts say.
CLIMATE CHANGE, IMMIGRATION
Climate change remains one of the most pressing issues for France during its six-month presidency. France is expected to broker an agreement on mechanisms to curb greenhouse gas emissions and promote green energy resources ahead of a world summit in Copenhagen next year to create a successor to the Kyoto protocol.
But the issue has been tough to tackle as EU members remain heavily disputed over how to measure emissions and share the clean-up burden, despite claims by the EU as a whole that the 27-nation bloc is a "driving force" in the fight against climate change.
France, which has nearly 80 percent of its electricity supplied by nuclear power, has repeatedly clashed with countries led by Germany which has decided to phase out its nuclear power by 2010.
The EU's ambitious goal to cut carbon emissions by 30 percent would be "very difficult to achieve" without nuclear power, argued the French leader.
Meanwhile, Sarkozy plans to present an "immigration pact" in meeting in Cannes next week. The EU leaders are expected to agree to strengthen EU border controls and streamline procedures for repatriating illegal immigrants.
However, the "immigration pact" is not expected to come out very smoothly. The new immigration policies passed by the European Parliament earlier this month has outraged human rights activists and countries with a big emigrant population in the EU, such as Latin America countries.
Leaders of the South American Common Market (Mercosur), which groups Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, have during a recent summit strongly criticized the EU move as a "violation of human rights," and called on the EU to abolish the "biased" rules.
The so-called "return directive," which could come into force in 2010, allows up to 18 months' detention of illegal immigrants before deportation from the EU.
ENERGY
France has listed energy as one of the top priorities during its presidency. Energy concerns have especially heightened recently as oil prices hit a record high above 140 U.S. dollars per barrel, sparking protests by truck drivers across Europe.
French Secretary of State for European Affairs Jean-Pierre Jouyet has said France "would go as far as possible" to reach an agreement on a new EU energy package before the end of its term. The European energy policy should seek to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and increase investment in energy networks.
The goal, if achieved, would allow the following Czech presidency to present legislative proposals on the issue to the European Parliament before it breaks up on 9 February 2009, in preparation for the next elections.
However, EU leaders have been largely divided on the energy deal. France and Germany have clashed with other EU governments over plans to break up energy giants and open up the bloc's energy market in an effort to increase customer choice and drive down prices.
EU leaders have also disputed over how to deal with the soaring oil prices.
Sarkozy had urged EU leaders to take emergency measures by capping value added tax (VAT) on fuel, but the proposal was rejected by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's introduction of a windfall tax on oil companies and Austria's call for an EU tax on commodity speculation also met cold response from other EU countries.
As a compromise, the European Commission will conduct a study together with France on all proposed fiscal measures to deal with soaring oil prices and a report was expected before the next EU summit in October.
EU leaders may still have to find ways to reach agreement on certain key issues, such as a common EU defense policy, but the fact that they are shifting attention to issues more relevant to ordinary citizens may prove helpful to salvage the somewhat endangered idea of EU integration, analysts say.
Source:Xinhua
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