Comment - France realises more Member States mean less EU
By Nicholas Karides

EVERYBODY knew that Turkey’s candidacy would divide the European Union. But nobody had thought it would destabilise the Union’s integration process well before it actually joined the group. It is happening already, as early as six months before Turkey begins accession negotiations.

France, a founding member and the soul of European integration in the past 55 years stands ready to shoot down the EU Constitutional Treaty as its voters perceive a ‘yes’ vote as the herald of Turkey's eventual membership to the Union.

Polls indicate that French voters appear inclined to say ‘no’ on May 29 because they believe that in December last year Jacques Chirac and his 24 European Council partners made a fatal mistake by opening the door to Turkey’s membership. They are not alone in considering Turkey’s entry as undermining the EU’s future. But they are unique in being prepared to kill the Constitution and bring paralysis to the EU to make the point.

The truth is that Turkey’s membership process and the coming into force of the Constitutional Treaty are not connected. But in the more complicated context of a Europe gripped by growing anti-Islamic sentiment and locked in the midst of a difficult economic downturn, the two have become inexorably linked. Add to that a thorny Directive on the liberalisation of services seized upon by the usually pro-European political parties and France’s ‘no’ looks alarmingly probable.

It is questionable whether the French will be able to rebuild the construction if they decide to rock its foundations but, rather than allow an Islamic country and potentially the biggest member state to dilute the Union, they are willing to take the risk. And let us be clear: these are not anti-Europeans. Paralysis they may bring, but this is not a country that at any stage suffered from the slightest symptoms of euro-sclerosis.

The debate in France is the signal of a much deeper dilemma, wrapped in melancholy, as the country seeks to reinvent itself in a Union of 25-plus and increasingly English-speaking member states.

There was a time when EU officials spoke the mantra of ''deepening and widening'' going hand-in-hand in Europe. The concept that with every prospective enlargement (last year saw the completion of the fifth, the so called big-bang) the Community had to integrate further, by streamlining its decision making mechanisms and voting in more policy harmonisation. It appears a limit has been reached. Europe cannot sustain going deeper and wider at the same time, certainly not at its previous pace. It has to choose between the two. France is signalling that it wants the former, especially if the latter includes Turkey.

The French message for EU leaders is that they need to slow down the enlargement process. They’ve got the internal market, they’ve got the euro and they’ve fulfilled their historical obligation of embracing the countries of the recent enlargement. Turkey in fact was never part of that grand project. They should now consolidate what they have achieved and, as they have begun, focus on their flagging Lisbon Strategy to make the Union the most competitive knowledge-based economy.

In doing so, they should also consider that things aren’t as bad as their self-perpetuating goals force them to believe. The Union has achieved a great deal. Whether it has institutionalised a comprehensive common foreign and security policy or whether there is a single telephone number for its foreign minister are not crucial at this stage.

Europe has and is making a difference. If it stays compact and cohesive it will continue to do so. The US may continue to launch wars but it’s the EU that will always be required to establish the peace. In the end, every nation in the periphery of Europe looks to the Union for solidarity and support (including Turkey, not to mention the Ukraine).

The Constitution was meant to determine where the Union wanted to go. The difficulties of the ratification process are proving necessary because they are helping define the path it needs to follow to get there. And the French are saying that this path need not run through Turkey.

To reverse the trend, the French government could make its public opinion realise that their ‘no’ vote would result in an indigestible side-effect. It would in fact get Tony Blair off the hook and deny the UK its own eagerly anticipated chance to say ‘no’, which may force it to reconsider its own membership.

A French ‘no’ would delay the EU train but it would not derail it. In contrast, a British ‘no’ would not only fail to hold the train back but it could unhook the British carriage.

In the end, France may still say ‘yes’ to the Constitution, however marginally. In an act of solidarity, the German Bundestag has deliberately set May 14 for its own ratification of the Constitution to generate positive momentum for France.

Whatever the result, public sentiment can no longer be ignored. Of course, the European Union will march on because it has to, and because both Germany and France need it to. It is however, obvious that France, much earlier than other Member States, has begun to realise that its role in the Union and the type of Union it envisages are best served with fewer member states, not more.

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