France thrives as Europe's crisis-manager: analysts

(PARIS) - From war in the Caucasus to the meltdown in global finance, France's presidency of the European Union has turned into an crash-course in managing crises that are changing the political landscape.

France's six-month EU presidency got off to a rocky start in July when Ireland rejected a key reform treaty designed to give the 27-nation bloc a new leaner decision-making structure.

A month later, Russia sent troops and tanks into the former Soviet republic of Georgia, sparking five days of fighting that ended after President Nicolas Sarkozy brokered a ceasefire on behalf of the EU.

The following month brought still more challenges: US investment giant Lehman Brothers collapsed, setting off a domino effect that left banks tottering across Europe and rattled stock markets.

The triple whammy has forced France to quickly re-arrange its EU priorities and take decisive action at a time when the United States is engrossed in a presidential campaign.

"The French presidency is not going the way we expected it to," France's minister for Europe Jean-Pierre Jouyet commented this week. "It has become a crisis-managing presidency."

With the energetic Sarkozy at the helm, France tackled the challenges head-on, although strains have appeared in the partnership with Germany and there were missteps along the way.

"The energy shown by Sarkozy and the clear focus he had in converting consensus into firm EU decisions is a positive thing," said John Palmer, from the Federal Trust think tank in London.

The president who declared "France is back in Europe" in his election victory speech in May 2007 engaged in shuttle diplomacy between Moscow and Tbilisi to end the Russia-Georgia conflict.

While Sarkozy faced resistance from German Chancellor Angela Merkel for Europe-wide action on the financial crisis, he managed to bring countries that use the euro currency together around a plan first devised by Prime Minister Gordon Brown for Britain.

"Sarkozy has been quick to seize the kind of proposal that Brown came out with an put in a EU framework," said Palmer.

The plan agreed at a Paris summit on Sunday called for governments across Europe to guarantee interbank loans and offer capital to ailing banks in a bid to overcome the credit crunch threatening to bring economies to a halt.

France's bolstered role stems partly from the fact that the United States has been weakened, said Antonio Missiroli of the European Policy Centre in Brussels.

"The Americans were unable to help Georgia and prevent the financial crisis and they have an outgoing president," he said.

"Most governments gave Sarkozy quite a good mark," said Charles Grant, director of the European Center for Reform in London.

But agreements negotiated with Moscow and Tbilissi have been criticised for lacking specifics while a first attempt at a Europe-wide response to the banking crisis with Britain, Germany and Italy fell flat.

"The premature announcement of a European intervention fund had to be quickly denied and this was a blunder," said Missiroli.

On Europe's ties with Russia, Sarkozy "gets good marks for the tactics but there is no sign yet that the tactics form a logical part of a longer term strategic policy," said Palmer.

Europe's time of crises has underscored the need for unity, say commentators.

"The lesson that everyone is drawing from these crises including in Ireland is that we need a Europe that is able to unite quickly," said Alain Lamassoure, a deputy in the European parliament from France's governing party.

France hands over the EU presidency to the Czech Republic on January 1.