John Vinocur

What Price Sovereignty for Europe?
By John Vinocur International Herald Tribune, May 25, 2000

- The German proposal for a federalist Europe really means an awkward acceleration into the present of one of Europe's least comfortable issues: whether European Union members want to turn over great slabs of national power to a supranational government .

The gurgle and gush over the plan's linkage, by the French interior minister, Jean-Pierre Chevenement, to alleged Nazi reflexes in Germany only momentarily misdirected attention from the proposal's first and more meaningful result. In the space of a week, the initiative deepened the place of the conflictual questions of sovereignty and national independence in daily European politics.

Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer of Germany talked in his proposition about establishing an operating European federation over this decade and the next, a middle-term, nonpressing idea. But history, ideology and the voting schedules in some countries (France and Denmark, for example) turn the themes of where Europe wants to go in the long run, and the national prerogatives individual states might sacrifice to get there, into immediate, where-do-you-stand matters.

Mr. Fischer surely sought only to shine a light of long-range perspective though the deep gray of the European Union's discomfort with its common currency's performance and its plans for enlargement eastward. He acknowledged the obvious - that anything with the word ''federation'' in it would be contentious in Britain - yet may not have fully measured the risk that pointing to the end of the road of European construction would very quickly complicate the process of getting beyond the middle.

Poland provided evidence at once. Foreign Minister Bronislaw Geremek reacted at first, it was reported, by praising the German initiative's ''courageous vision.'' Then, rethinking its effect on domestic politics and in relation to Poland's centuries of struggle to maintain its identity, Mr. Geremek drew back. ''I think,'' he said, ''that this proposition is contrary to the manner of thinking of the candidate countries that have just recovered their independence and their sovereignty.''

In Lisbon, the Foreign Ministry said flatly, ''Portugal doesn't see itself corresponding to the federal model.'' In Copenhagen, it became clear that the outcome of Denmark's referendum Sept. 28 on whether to join the EU's common currency could be significantly affected by the Fischer initiative because it re-emphasized the wider issues of sovereignty involved in accepting the euro.

Such questions of national independence are extremely sensitive and complex in France, which has said it looked over Mr. Fischer's shoulder as his formulation came into being.

In a French frame of reference, guarding the nation's specificities, encouraging its needs for self-affirmation and fashioning its attempts at world resonance are among the most essential tasks of a French leader. With a proposed federalist program of shared power in Europe, Mr. Fischer, in a sense, has challenged this French concept and created a situation requiring serious, programmatic responses from both President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.

Although both have addressed Europe's future in recent speeches, neither has offered anything vast or substantive to compete with the German lead. Ironically, as likely rivals for the presidency in 2002, Mr. Chirac and Mr. Jospin are continuously engaged in a sometimes subterranean competition over who best represents French interests.

This fact, and the excitement of sovereignists like Mr. Chevenement about denouncing anything federal, would seem to push the debate about Europe's eventual shape into the forefront of French political life. Mr. Chirac has announced major speeches at the end of the month here, and then before the Bundestag in Berlin in late June, yet there is no certainty France will provide a soaring plan for the EU's future.

On a practical level, France is very much involved in the detail work of its six-month presidency of the European Council, beginning in July, and would not want to dilute the focus of its reform proposals aimed at enabling the EU to double in size.

But more important, France may not have an operative concept at hand.

As opposed to Germany's view of European institutions, French instincts suggest the country has more to gain from a rough replication of the status quo than in a visionary flight forward.

Thinking in France of Europe's finality, as it is called in Brussels, means confronting the necessity that the country, for the first time, will have to give up elements of what constitutes its identity and self-esteem. Unlike Helmut Kohl, who surrendered the Deutsche mark and the role of the Bundesbank for the cause of Europe, there is no active politician in France proposing French reintegration of NATO, however Europeanized, as a gauge of willingness to share sovereignty.

As far as Mr. Fischer's federalist call goes, Mr. Chevenement, the Socialist nationalist within the Jospin government, told a French reporter that neither Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine nor Mr. Jospin ''wants to go very far with it.'' Alongside the scolding Mr. Chevenement received for his coarse views on Germany, that description of his boss's position has drawn no denials.

Under the circumstances, this returned Europe to a position where it finds itself repeatedly. That is, dealing with a complex and emotional issue that no time soon will enhance the political cohesiveness the community so much wants to project.

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