France starts EU presidency with dampened ambition

France takes over the EU's rotating presidency today for what was originally billed as six months of action-packed diplomacy, but other EU capitals and Irish voters have forced it to scale down its aims.

Last year, fresh from his election victory, President Nicolas Sarkozy had a range of plans for his turn at the helm, from an EU-style Mediterranean Union to bringing the bloc's new institutional order into force and hosting a summit on the euro.

Those plans have either been watered down or scrapped, taking the sheen off Mr Sarkozy's ambitions.

"We went from a vision that Mr Sarkozy was going to change Europe to a slightly more realistic view of what a President can do," said Olivier Louis, head of the EU presidency programme at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI).

To many countries, coordinating policy and organising the many meetings that go with 27-nation bloc's presidency are just another administrative chore. Mr Sarkozy, however, had pledged to make France's turn a model of action and effectiveness.

The Mediterranean Union was to bring the sea's motley crew of residents together in one, EU-inspired framework.

But Germany and others baulked at the idea of France, Italy, Spain and Greece drawing on EU funds to finance a project that would not be open to EU countries without a Mediterranean coast.

The initiative was downsized, its membership expanded to all EU states and it was renamed "Union for the Mediterranean". The launch summit in Paris on July 13 will be one of the presidency's main events, but its impact remains to be seen and there are doubts about whether all leaders will attend.

"They (the French) are very concerned that they won't have a PR strategy for the presidency, they don't know what to sell. And the only thing they are able to sell is this Mediterranean summit," said Ulrike Guerot, head of the Berlin office of the European Council of Foreign Relations think-tank.

Paris had also expected to play midwife to the Lisbon Treaty overhauling EU institutions, which was due to come into force on January 1, and find a long-term President for the bloc.

Irish voters' rejection of the EU reform treaty in the June referendum scuppered any hope of the agreement Mr Sarkozy helped broker coming into force on schedule.

Mr Sarkozy will go to Dublin on July 11 to look for a solution that could address Irish voters' concerns and make it possible for the government to call a new vote next year, diplomats say.

"Now that there's the Irish 'No', it's the future of Lisbon that overshadows the rest of the agenda, and the French need to be creative to offer solutions," Ms Guerot said.

"If they come up with a good negotiation with the Irish and they can find a face-saving solution, then that would be a big, big, big result," she added.

The Mediterranean Union and Lisbon setbacks came after Paris quietly abandoned another goal - holding the first summit of leaders from the 15-nation euro-zone on the single currency, over which Paris and Berlin clashed early in Mr Sarkozy's term.

Many of France's other official priorities face obstacles.

One aim is brokering an agreement on mechanisms to curb greenhouse gas emissions and promote green energy sources, paving the way for a meeting in Copenhagen next year to create a successor to the Kyoto protocol on climate change.

Diplomats say it is a particularly difficult task, with numerous countries laying down their own requirements.

Mr Sarkozy has announced he wants to use the EU presidency to boost European defence, an ambition that will depend largely on the bloc's other military heavyweight, Britain.

Paris is also due to lead an updating of the Common Agricultural Policy and lay the foundations for future reform, but talks so far have made little progress.

A more easily achievable task will be harmonising rules on immigration and asylum in a single pact as much of it involves pulling together initiatives that are already being prepared, and it is widely supported.