Why Giscard spoke out on Turkey and the EU

Thomas Fuller
International Herald Tribune, 4 December, 2002

Early last month a reporter for Le Monde received a phone call from the office of Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the former president of France.

Giscard wanted to talk about Turkey's application for membership in the European Union, a spokesman told the reporter, who quickly obliged and interviewed Giscard.

Published Nov. 8, the comments on Turkey created a stir across Europe. Turkey was not part of Europe, Giscard said. The Turks have a different culture, a different "way of life," and it would be the end of the European Union if they were ever admitted.

The provocative comments, which contradicted the official line of the European Union, puzzled the chattering ranks of Europe's bureaucracy. For eight months, Giscard had presided over the Convention on the Future of Europe, an ambitious effort to write the Union's first true constitution. Why had he suddenly stirred this hornet's nest?

"He's a man of huge political sophistication," said Chris Patten, the official charged with foreign affairs at the European Commission. "I can't believe it was a slip of the tongue."

In fact, Giscard's comments fit neatly into a pattern: Since beginning his job as head of the convention, the elder statesman has at fairly regular intervals made headlines by announcing provocative and at times quirky proposals for Europe's future.

Whether by design or not, these remarks have raised Giscard's profile out of the has-been club of former presidents of European countries and back into the glare of the spotlights. They have also injected life into a potentially boring subject: how to rewrite the labyrinthine rules that govern the European Union.

Call it public relations for Europe's constitutional convention.

"We don't have the means to run a big advertising campaign," said Giscard's spokesman, Nikolaus Meyer-Landrut. "All we have is words." (Giscard could not be reached Tuesday evening at his home in Paris.)

A month before summoning the reporter for Le Monde, Giscard proposed in a speech that the European Union change its name to the "United States of Europe." Several weeks earlier, he came out in favor of Europe's creating an American-style secretary of state.

Neither idea is central to the work of the convention. The European Union can function properly with its current name. And the creation of a European superminister for foreign affairs would not solve fundamental questions about how power is shared in the Union.

But partly as a result of the media coverage Giscard received for the easy-to-grasp ideas, Europe's constitutional convention is now at the top of the busy political agenda in Brussels.

The notion of writing a constitution for Europe - derided by many officials a year ago - is now virtually a foregone conclusion. Last month Giscard presented a fill-in-the-blanks skeleton of what the constitution could look like.

More importantly, Europe's biggest and most influential countries are now taking the convention more seriously. Two weeks ago Jacques Chirac, the French president, announced that he was replacing a lower-ranking representative at the convention with Dominique de Villepin, France's foreign minister.

"At a time when the Convention on the Future of the European Union - which you are presiding over so efficiently - will begin its most important phase," Chirac said in a letter to Giscard, "I would like to express again France's determination to contribute to the success of this great enterprise."

Several months earlier, Germany had upgraded its representation, sending Joschka Fisher, the foreign minister, to the convention. Now all five heavyweights in the European Union - France, Germany, Britain, Spain and Italy - have minister-level representatives at the convention.

"They realized that if you want to influence the process you must do it now," said Meyer-Landrut, Giscard's spokesman.

None of this guarantees success for Giscard. Making headlines is not the same as hammering out a coherent set of rules to allow the Union to run smoothly, especially with its scheduled expansion from 15 to 25 members in 2004.

Fundamental questions about which institutions in Brussels will hold power have only begun to be discussed.

On Thursday, the European Commission, the Union's executive body, is expected to lobby for more power when it presents its vision of the future government in Brussels.

The convention delegates are expected to continue their work well into next year until they produce a constitution, which then must be approved by the Union's 15 members.