Franse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken: volgend jaar erop of eronder voor de EU (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Former French foreign minister Michel Barnier has said the EU project risks going off track completely if political leaders do not use next year to make a concerted effort to pull Europe out of its crisis.

Referring to the "suspended" political climate in Europe at the moment, the ex-commissioner indicated that the entire project is "threatened" if EU leaders do not seize the political impetus provided by the French elections next year to get Europe out of its "breakdown."

Speaking at the European Policy Centre in Brussels on Tuesday (10 October), he welcomed presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy's recent contribution to the EU debate which took the form of suggesting that the shelved EU constitution be reduced to a mini-treaty plus a reform of the bloc's institutions.

Mr Barnier, who helped pen the Sarkozy initiative and is currently involved in a 'wise' group working on ways to revive the constitution, said he preferred to call it a "simplified and functional" form of the treaty. He said that work on the streamlined version should be carried out very quickly during 2007 and 2008.

France has elections in spring next year, which is expected to free up the political debate on the constitution - on ice since both France and the Netherlands rejected it in popular votes last year.

Since the votes, which rocked Europe's political core, there has been little public debate and transparently little political will on the part of member states to put the issue back on the political agenda.

Mr Barnier said he found the "the silence for a year and a half in France unbelievable" adding that as a possible future president of France it was "absolutely necessary" that Mr Sarkozy speak out on the constitution.

European affairs should also be treated as a national affair and not as a foreign debate said Mr Barnier, adding that he was astounded that there was such a "disconnection" between Brussels and citizens that the services directive, published without much ado at the beginning of 2004, could a year and a half later "blow up in our faces."

The controversial law on opening up the market in services fuelled fears of a neo-liberal Europe, with the services debate colouring most of the discussion leading up to the French rejection of the constitution on 29 May, 2005.

EU will not be sitting at the power table

Looking to the future, Mr Barnier suggested that if member states do not stop thinking on an "everyone for himself" basis, then in 15 to 20 years Europe's lack of power will be all too evident.

Pointing to an imaginary global power table, Mr Barnier said that the US is already at the table, China, Russia, India and Brazil will sooner or later be there but "no single EU country will be at that table" becoming, instead, spectators of their own fate.

Referring to the "moment of truth", Mr Barnier said that while Europe has an economic and monetary dimension, its political dimension is missing, adding soon afterwards that he himself intends to run in the European Parliament elections in 2009.