French state visit

Today French President N. Sarkozy is on a state visit to the UK, which is an apt way to start this blog. Beyond the pomp of such circumstances (video), this visit is politically important for several reasons. First, it is one of the first official meetings between two new leaders, N. Sarkozy and G. Brown, whose EU policies are still partly unclear: Brown is said to be relatively eurosceptic, in the real sense of the word, though he is securing the ratification of the Lisbon treaty by the British Parliament. Sarkozy has sent mixed signals to Brussels, 'salvaging' the treaty in the Spring but also flouting the EU budget deficit rules and criticising the European Central Bank. Second, unlike his predecessor, Sarkozy is a clear Anglophile, a friend of Tony Blair's (not necessarily a good thing in Brown's eyes !) and an admirer of the Thatcher and New Labour structural reforms of the British economy. There is therefore potential for collaboration between the two governments, which Sarkozy called for in his speech to the two Houses of Parliament. He and the Prime Minister hailed what was more than an 'entente cordiale', an 'entente formidable' !

Three areas in particular were mentioned, in the run up to the French presidency of the EU starting on 1 July: immigration, the nuclear energy and defence. On immigration, the two governments agreed on stepping up cooperation to prevent the flow of immigrants from Calais and, at the EU level, to work towards a common asylum policy, which Sarkozy is very keen on. No contract was signed in the nuclear industries, but French companies, especially Areva, are hoping for cooperation as Britain prepares to expand its nuclear industry.
On defence, Sarkozy pledged to increase the number of French troops in Afghanistan, responding to American and British wishes for more involvement of NATO countries. In return, France should be able to rely on British support to negotiate its way back into NATO's integrated structures, which it left in 1966.
The two governments also agreed on the need to reform the big multilateral institutions - the IMF, World Bank and UN Security Council - and avoided talking about controversial issues like the EU budget and the Common Agricultural Policy... See the final communique.