ANALYSIS:IN THE diplomatic choreography of the euro zone's debt crisis, honed over years spent dousing rolling economic wildfires, there's a familiar pre-summit sequence in which Europe's power brokers clear their domestic diaries and take to the skies for a round of one-to-one meetings.
Their purpose is usually to bridge gaps or put the seal on stances negotiated by officials, but every chancellery is alive to their symbolic value, which makes them useful political weather vanes as well.
As a fresh round of shuttle diplomacy began this month, one travel itinerary worth watching was that of French president François Hollande, one of newest members of the euro zone leaders club.
Just as his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy did when a big push was around the corner, Hollande travelled to Berlin to confer with German chancellor Angela Merkel. But he also made a point, within days, of flying to Madrid and Rome for similar talks. If Hollande wanted to show he was serious about breaking up the ad-hoc Sarkozy-era directorate between Paris and Berlin and positioning France as a “bridge” between north and south, then here it was.
French dealings with EU partners have undergone a stylistic change since Hollande took office. But the bigger question – and one that remains a puzzle – is how France now sees the long game playing out.
With talk of treaty change in the air and noises about “political union” growing louder in Berlin, one of the big questions to be answered is: Where exactly does Hollande stand? To his supporters, the French president has already begun to impose his will.
Having run for election on a pledge to renegotiate the fiscal treaty, his election gave new impetus to efforts to balance the German-driven focus on austerity with measures to promote growth, and to persuade the European Central Bank to flex its muscle. But “renegotiate the treaty” was as much a campaign slogan as a policy; Hollande agreed with the treaty’s tight limits on debts and deficits.
More meaningful has been the renegotiation of France’s relationships in the EU. Sarkozy took a strategic decision early on to align himself as closely as possible with Germany, believing it was imperative to sustain the perception of distance between Paris and the struggling “Club Med” at a time when France’s precarious financial position left it exposed to contagion from the south. Hollande, in contrast, has not been afraid to air his differences with Merkel in public or to widen France’s circle of confidantes.
This has already had some effect. When, at an EU summit in June, Italian prime minister Mario Monti challenged Merkel to agree measures to calm down the tension in debt markets, he knew he could count on Hollande’s support.
More generally, the French president’s view that virtuous states should not be punished with unjustifiably high interest rates is just what Spain and Italy want to hear. All the signs are that Ireland is finding a sympathetic ear in Paris for its campaign to ease the bank debt burden. And it won’t have gone unnoticed in Dublin that, when Minister for Finance Michael Noonan met his French counterpart, Pierre Moscovici, in Paris last week, the issue of corporate tax – a hardy perennial on the Franco-Irish agenda under Sarkozy – wasn’t even mentioned.
It’s common for French presidents to start out proclaiming a desire to cultivate new allies only to gravitate ever closer to Germany the longer they are in power, as if the relationship exerts a gravitational pull they find hard to resist. Sarkozy admitted that he only realised while in office that, if Paris or Berlin wanted to get anything done, they had to act together.
Already, there are signs that Hollande’s camp is keen to dampen talk of rupture. But France’s stance will be crucial in the next phase of the crisis. Its wish list is clear: it wants closer economic integration in the euro zone, complete with banking union and eurobonds, and it is pressing for the euro zone (where France’s voice is amplified) to be upgraded as a decision-making entity. Less clear is how far Paris is willing to go to agree the quid pro quo that Germany demands before it becomes guarantor-in-chief – namely, meaningful political integration.
Ceding sovereignty has always been sensitive for France, and it’s a safe bet that Hollande has little appetite for a federalist leap. He may be a convinced European, but his party is haunted by memories of its split over the ill-fated European constitution in 2005. And with local and European elections due in 2014, the socialists have no desire to see their left flank strengthened by another polarising debate on Europe.
Hollande speaks vaguely of intégration solidaire, or integration with solidarity, evoking a synthesis between the demands of Germany and France, but quite what he has in mind has yet to be spelled out.
With attention turning to the question of how European democracy can be organised around the euro, and what that might require of each member state, Hollande may soon come under pressure to reveal his hand.
Ruadhán Mac Cormaic is Paris Correspondent