Cablegate: Ambassador's Meeting with Former Eu Commission

This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 008631

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/23/2015
TAGS: PREL PGOV FR EUN
SUBJECT: AMBASSADOR'S MEETING WITH FORMER EU COMMISSION
PRESIDENT JACQUES DELORS

Classified By: Acting Political Counselor Bruce I. Turner for reasons 1
.4 (b) and (d).

1. (C) SUMMARY: In a meeting with Ambassador Stapleton on
December 21, former EU Commission president Jacques Delors
underlined his feeling that Europe is currently in a deep
crisis, in part because of the lack of visionary European
leadership, but also because of Europeans' hostility to EU
enlargement, and disagreements among member states about
foreign policy and socio-economic matters. The French
people, he said, are trapped in a "schizophrenia" combining
arrogance (the exaltation of France) with self-doubt. He did
not see a politician on the French scene, on the left or the
right, capable of leading France out of this malaise, and he
refused to be drawn out about his preferences on either the
left or the right. Delors nonetheless insisted that the
Socialist Party was fundamentally pro-transatlantic, adding
that no matter who is the victor in 2007, U.S.-French
relations would improve. He concluded with the hope that the
U.S. would pay more attention to the EU and noted the need
for the U.S. and the EU to work as partners, and not rivals,
to confront the challenges of the 21st century. END SUMMARY.

The Crisis in the EU
--------------------

2. (C) Ambassador Stapleton met December 21 with Jacques
Delors in his office at the Council of Employment, Income,
and Social Cohesion, the government-affiliated think tank
that Delors, 80, now heads. Delors said he believed Europe
was in a deep crisis, from which it was proving difficult to
emerge. First, the Europeans did not understand or
appreciate the need for the May 2004 enlargement, which he
characterized several times with great emotion an "imperative
of history." As a young European activist in the 1950s, he
said, he would not have imagined today's EU of 25. But the
events of the second half of the century made it necessary to
enlarge. He welcomed the opening of accession talks with
Turkey in the optic of preventing a clash of civilizations
between the West and Islam.

3. (C) The second cause of crisis, Delors said, was the deep
disagreements among EU member states on foreign policy (as
exemplifed by the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s
and in the lead up to Iraq in late 2002 and early 2003) and
on socio-economic policy. On the latter, Delors discerned
three divergent viewpoints among European actors: to the left
is the English model, followed by Sweden; to the right, the
French model; and in the middle, he said, is the path he
himself advocated as commission president, but which finds
few adherents today: the path of small steps. His view was
that EU member states should attempt only to agree on
concrete initiatives and put aside the mirage of a fully
agreed foreign policy.

French Narcissism
-----------------

4. (C) When asked how the EU might work its way out of the
crisis, Delors responded that, regrettably, Europe currently
lacked the visionary leaders of the past such as Adenauer,
Schuman, Kohl, and Mitterand. The current heads of state, he
said, had no real vision. He believed the new German
government would play a positive role re-establishing
equilibrium in Germany's relations with Europe and with the
United States. But he was dismissive of President Chirac and
the current government, arguing that this would not change
until new presidential elections. More generally, he
complained about a French predilection to put theory before
practice, often with disastrous results. Similarly, the
French system had difficulty reconciling its myth of unity
with the existence of diversity.

5. (C) In regards to the French rejection of the EU
constitutional treaty in the May 29 referendum, Delors
described himself as "shocked" by the French notion that its
own rejection of the constitutional treaty made it a dead
letter. "What pretension!" he exclaimed. He continued that
the other EU member states had the right to pronounce
themselves on the treaty, and that the EU should not consider
next steps until the views of all were on record. (Comment:
Delors did not address the fact that some countries, such as
the UK, might prefer not to go on record. End Comment.)

France's Identity Crisis
------------------------

6. (C) Delors said France was now in a peculiar situation --
the French people are at once traumatised by their smaller
role in the world and arrogant about their unique calling and
ability to bring positive values to the world. The
combination of this traumatism and arrogance, he said, made
for a poisonous schizophrenia. He castigated as dangerous in
particular those who "are tempted to exalt France's
importance on the world scene." Unfortunately, he did not
see a leader on the French political scene who could persuade
the French people to abandon this delusional mindset in the
interest of playing a more pragmatic, "useful" role in
coordination with others, including the U.S. On the
contrary, he expressed some concern that far-right
politicians, through appeals to France's "post-Napoleonic
reflex," would exacerbate the problem.

Improving U.S.-French Relations
-------------------------------

7. (C) Further to the question of the 2007 presidential
election, Delors said that no matter what the result, he
believed the next French president will want to improve
relations with the U.S. "It's impossible to maintain the
current situation," he said. He insisted that the Socialist
Party (PS) was fundamentally pro-American and pro-European,
"pro-Atlantic" in his term, as was Francois Bayrou's centrist
party UDF (Democratic Union for France), despite the decision
of many PS members to vote against the constitution and the
leadership's use of what could be called an anti-American
rhetoric in its campaigning and public declarations.

8. (C) Delors insisted throughout the meeting that the U.S.
and EU needed to work as partners, and not as rivals, to
address the challenges of the twenty-first century, citing in
particular the emergence of China. He saw a need for the
U.S. to "pay more attention" to the mood in Europe, without
giving undue consideration to public opinion polls and the
media. Saying that "Europe is not as ill as it appears,"
Delors also expressed the hope, while acknowledging it was
difficult, that U.S. politicians would become cognizant of
the EU's potential.
Please visit Paris' Classified Website at:
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm

Stapleton

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