Chirac Plots to Rekindle France's Love for Eu

Jacques Chirac and his closest allies are drawing up an ambitious blueprint to rekindle France’s faith in Europe through a series of practical measures such as a new EU disaster relief force. As France approaches the first anniversary of the no vote against the EU constitution in May, President Chirac will choose four or five of the "grands projets", which he hopes will persuade French voters that the union can be a force for good.

He also hopes to undermine the presidential ambitions of his interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, who recently called for the constitution to be revived in stages.

The Chirac ideas, which are designed to boost the chances of the Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, in next year’s elections, can be introduced without a new EU constitution. One proposal would create a European civil defense force to help with disaster relief.

Other ideas include creating a European border guard force that could start by patrolling the Franco-German border, where checks have recently been re-introduced in response to the terrorist threat. This force would have to be restricted to the Schengen group of EU countries, from which Britain has excluded itself, whose members remove border controls when the terrorist threat is low.

The French also want to boost the role of Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief who would have become the union’s foreign minister if the constitution had passed. France knows that it must tread carefully as Britain would be wary of a unilateral expansion of EU foreign policy, though receptive in areas where there is agreement such as Iran, the Middle East and the Balkans.

Turning the eurozone group of 12 countries into a more political grouping, with an informal gathering of heads of government would also strengthen the union, but France would act sensitively because Britain would be opposed.

But the EU could create a common energy policy, an idea recently taken up by Britain as it struggles with rising costs of North Sea oil and gas as supplies shrink, and respond to global warming by appointing a Europe-wide forest fire airforce, along the line of the Canadair planes which drop tons of water on French forest fires every summer. This is urgent after fires devastated parts of Portugal last summer.

Other ways of promoting the EU in the minds of its citizens would be to introduce lessons on the values of Europe into the school curriculum, doubling the number of Erasmus scholarships which allow university students to study across the EU, and creating a European service corps for young people.

President Chirac’s allies are also looking at ideas to repatriate some EU powers - an idea normally only voiced by British Eurosceptics - such as setting VAT rates. Mr. Chirac is angry that he has failed to implement his election pledge to reduce VAT in French restaurants because this is largely an EU matter. Changes to VAT rules would mean amending EU treaties.

The ideas will inevitably seen as a rebuke to Mr. Sarkozy, who recently outlined a detailed plan to revive the EU constitution. But relations between the Chirac and Sarkozy camps are at an all time low.