France took the EU helm yesterday, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy calling for profound changes in building Europe following the setback over Ireland’s “no” to the bloc’s key reform treaty.
“Something isn’t right. Something isn’t right at all,” Sarkozy acknowledged during a TV interview to mark the start of the six-month French EU presidency.
The magnitude of the task ahead was immediately underlined with an announcement by Polish President Lech Kaczynski that he would not sign the EU’s Lisbon Treaty in the wake of its rejection by Irish voters.
PHOTO: EPA
“For the moment, the question of the treaty is pointless,” Kaczynski told the Dziennik newspaper.
The decision puts Kaczynski alongside his Czech and German counterparts in seeking to delay final ratification of the charter, which is aimed at streamlining EU decisionmaking.
It was another blow for Sarkozy who had been hoping to lead the EU into a new era of strength and unity, before the Irish vote last month plunged the 27-member bloc into its current crisis.
“There have been errors in the way that Europe has been built,” Sarkozy said in his interview on Monday night.
The European project has become a source of concern to citizens who are wondering whether national institutions can better protect them from the ill effects of globalization than European ones, he said.
Calling such thinking a “step backward,” Sarkozy said: “We must therefore profoundly change our way of building Europe.”
The energetic leader who proclaimed “France is back in Europe” after winning elections last year is expected to spend much of his time as EU leader working to salvage the Lisbon Treaty. The French EU presidency’s “first priority is to find a way to contain the problem to the Irish,” Sarkozy said, adding that EU countries must continue ratifying the key charter.
“We musn’t rush, but at the same time, we don’t have much time,” he said, recalling that EU leaders had set the European parliament elections in June next year as the deadline for approval of the Lisbon Treaty.
Sarkozy is due to travel to Ireland on July 11 to hear first hand the concerns of Irish voters, a day after he presents the priorities of the French EU presidency in an address to the EU parliament in Strasbourg.
EU leaders are expected to re-assess the fate of the Lisbon Treaty at a summit in October, during which Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen is to present his ideas on the way forward.
Emphasising that the EU must address day-to-day concerns, Sarkozy said he would work for a Europe-wide cut in the value-added tax (VAT) on restaurant bills and for a ceiling on the oil VAT to help consumers cope with soaring crude prices.
Sarkozy’s proposal on the oil tax has received a cool reception from EU leaders, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel arguing that cutting the VAT would do nothing to encourage a reduction in consumption.
But the European Commission agreed to consider the proposals and Sarkozy is due to present a report in October.
Sarkozy also said he wanted to give tax breaks to encourage the green economy, from construction of energy-efficient houses to buying cars that are less polluting.
France has defined four priorities for its EU stint — immigration, defense, energy and the environment, and agriculture — and one of its most high-profile projects is the July 13 launch of a new Union for the Mediterranean.
The union will bring together European countries with states from the Mediterranean rim including Israel and its Arab neighbors to develop cooperation.
On the first day of the French EU presidency, Sarkozy and Prime Minister Francois Fillon are to hold working meetings with European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso.
A ceremony was to be held at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris later yesterday.
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
RSS