Franse presidentskandidaat maakt haar EU-agenda bekend (en)

Segolene Royal, a leading Socialist candidate for next year's presidential elections in France, has outlined her EU agenda, listing a number of policy changes but refraining from making clear her views on the bloc's new constitution or Turkey's EU membership.

At a press conference on Wednesday (11 October), Ms Royal presented several ideas on how to relaunch the European project and boost the French citizens' enthusiasm for it.

"Europe is blocked. France is isolated. I want to unblock Europe and lead France out of isolation," she said according to press reports.

Although still not confirmed as an official candidate for the French socialists, Ms Royal is portrayed as their favourite, with the current interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy tipped off as her top centre-right contender in the 2007 presidential race.

Both frontrunners recently visited Brussels to meet with the chiefs of the European Commission and the European Parliament.

But while Mr Sarkozy used his Brussels tour to present a very concrete proposal on how to solve the EU's constitutional crisis, Ms Royal called off her press meetings at the last minute in a move interpreted as avoiding questions about her own opinion on the issue.

Asked about the constitution on Wednesday, Ms Royale said the French "need to restore their desire for Europe" before taking on new initiatives in the institutional sphere.

But she insisted that next year's debate on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, the bloc's founding document, would produce new ideas on how to close the stalemate.

On Turkish accession - another hot subject set to dominate the EU-related agenda during the presidential campaign - Ms Royal said she would submit Turkish EU entry to the will of the French people in a referendum, once the country is in a position to join the bloc.

Not new and not concrete ideas?

In terms of EU policies, Ms Royale suggested the bloc should encourage renewable energy and reform the Stability and Growth Pact - the set of rules underpinning the euro - to allow countries to exclude investments in research from their budget deficit calculations.

She also called for a scrapping of legal exceptions from EU rules setting a 48-hour weekly working time maximum - an idea resisted vehemently by the UK and several new member states.

The socialist frontrunner also pointed out that she is open to a reform to the EU's Common Agicultural Policy - a highly sensitive issue in her country, with French farmers getting the biggest chunk of EU farm cash.

Her idea on spending more EU money on environmentally-friendly rather than intensive farming is already part of the official policy line applied in Brussels for reforming EU funds, however.

French media gave a cold reaction to Ms Royal's Europe agenda, saying most of her ideas were vague or not very new, with the left-leaning Liberation commenting that her "only courageous and concrete proposal" was to resume EU aid to the Palestinians immediately.