Chirac launches charm offensive

Date: 02/11/1995

By Thomas Klau and Jacki Davis

FRENCH President Jacques Chirac used a series of meetings with his EU counterparts this week to mend fences and build bridges after a controversial first five months in office.

Following a high-profile meeting with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl last week when the two men put on a very public display of unity, Chirac held talks with Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok aimed at settling differences between the two countries over France's reluctance to implement the Schengen accord in full and its attacks on what it regards as the Netherland's over-tolerant drugs policy.

The meeting resulted in an agreement between the two leaders to set up a task force to step up cooperation between their police and justice authorities in combating drugs smuggling and terrorism.

Three days later, Chirac was in the UK for two days of talks with Prime Minister John Major, after which both men underlined a new-found warmth in Anglo-French relations with a series of agreements on topics ranging from defence cooperation to peacekeeping in Africa.

But it was the meeting between Kohl and Chirac which is being seen as the most significant of the three, given the importance of the Franco-German axis in past moves towards closer European integration.

Their mini-summit will be followed by a meeting between French foreign minister Hervé de Charette and his German counterpart Klaus Kinkel near Paris on 13 November which will officially kick start joint Franco-German preparations for next year's Intergovernmental Conference on EU reform.

Pending the planned creation of a common working group, senior officials from both countries have been busy for months sounding out each other's priorities for the upcoming review of the Maastricht Treaty.

So far, both governments have been reluctant to publicly come up with detailed reform proposals. But while Bonn left no doubts about its commitment to comprehensive political integration, clear indications are still lacking, say German diplomats, on how far down the federalist road the French president will be prepared to travel.

In electing Jacques Chirac five months ago, French voters propelled a man into the Elysee whose conflicting European policy record baffled most observers. Since then, the French president has given his German partner numerous grounds for fresh concern.

Bonn has been irritated by Chirac's assertive nuclear stance, jolted by his lambasting of the Schengen agreement and deeply disturbed by his initial reluctance to have the French government firmly attack its budget deficit - a necessary condition if France is to qualify for EMU in 1999.

While doubts remain, Chirac's public announcement of his intention to give deficit reduction priority over other policy areas, made last week on French television the day after his first official visit to Germany, has been welcomed in Bonn with an audible sigh of relief.

Further comfort, say German diplomats, can be taken from French attitudes in the Reflection Group preparing the IGC. Initially, France's European Affairs Minister Michel Barnier gave little away and stuck closely to non-committal briefs. But lately officials have detected encouraging signs of French readiness to transfer further national sovereignty to the European level.

While refusing to come out in favour of a substantial extension of majority voting, Barnier has spoken strongly of the need to strengthen the Union's clout on major foreign and defence policy matters.

As a first step, the creation of a study centre to come up with a common foreign policy evaluation is the one concrete measure the Reflection Group has agreed on, even if details are still unsettled. More controversial is the Franco-German idea to give the EU a publicly-identifiable foreign policy face and France's opportunistically-timed proposal to extend its nuclear umbrella to the rest of the EU, which received a cool response from Germany.

All in all, says one German participant in the reflection exercise, “French officials are keeping their cards close to their chest”.

To some extent, the reluctance to show one's hand too soon is true for both sides. While clearly stating its federalist ambition, Bonn has been anxious to avoid coming out officially with detailed reform proposals which others could - given Germany's weight - interpret as 'diktats' and team up against.

At this stage, diplomats harbour no grand design for the common Franco-German approach to next year's Maastricht review. Expectations for the Kinkel-Charette meeting in La Celle-Saint-Cloud should not be unduly high, they warn. A common plan for the IGC will emerge only shortly before the conference's start in the spring, if at all.

But Kohl will have been much heartened by Chirac's remarks after his meeting with Major distancing himself from the UK's attitude towards a single currency and dismissing Euro-scepticism as just a “passing fad”.