On May 6, Jacques Chirac sent Tony Blair a birthday present, accompanied by a letter expressing his “feelings of personal esteem and loyal friendship”.
This was a year with some truly momentous events: The signature of Europe’s first constitution, the admission of 10 (mainly former Communist) countries to the EU, hundreds of thousands of people on the streets of Ukraine, the union’s first big military mission and an opening of the EU’s doors to Turkey. But all were played out against a background of divisions forged over the US-led conflict in the Middle East.
Within weeks of Blair’s 50th birthday, the “personal esteem and loyal friendship” had been put to one side, first over the choice of the next EU Commission president, then over a NATO training mission in Iraq. Despite claims to the contrary, the scars remain deep, the gulf of perception reinforced by events including a terrorist attack that took place in March in Madrid.
Rather than shoring up support for Bush’s war on terrorism, the Madrid attacks that killed 91 people did the reverse. The center-right government of Jose Maria Aznar incorrectly blamed the Basque separatist group ETA and Spanish voters reacted in fury. Aznar’s party was dumped and one of the first acts of the new center-left government was to withdraw troops from Iraq.
The change of government in Spain did, however, help solve another festering problem: Deadlocked negotiations over the European constitution. Aznar’s administration had, along with the Poles, blocked a proposed change to the voting system within the EU. His Socialist successor, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, was more flexible.
The atmospherics of the negotiations were influenced by the knowledge that a moment of real history was taking place. In the summer sunshine of Dublin on May 1, the poet Seamus Heaney was called on to welcome 10 new countries into the EU.
Back in Brussels, under the astute chairmanship of Bertie Ahern, heads were knocked together on the constitution and a deal was done. As one of the architects of the Northern Ireland peace process, he was ideally placed to negotiate an agreement on the constitution, which was later signed in Rome. But even Ahern’s diplomatic skills were challenged by an Anglo-French rift over who should fill the job of EU Commission president. Blair was one of those who blocked France’s candidate, Guy Verhofstaft. In the end Portugal’s low-profile premier, Jose Manuel Barroso, emerged to clinch the job. The victory for a free marketeer who had backed the war in Iraq came with a price, with Chirac promptly stalling a NATO training mission to Bagdhad. And attempts to create a three-way alliance between the UK, Germany and France died a death.
Barroso set about introducing reforms to revive the European economy, a move more necessary than ever thanks to a weak dollar that choked EU exports. The euro soared despite changes to its widely flouted rulebook being deferred until 2005.
The team of European commissioners gained some colorful nominees. If Peter Mandelson provided some much-needed showbiz in Brussels, he was overshadowed by Italy’s nominee: Rocco Buttiglione. A friend of the Pope, Buttiglione provoked a storm with his comments on homosexuality. When Barroso failed to take swift action, a full-scale hurricane developed. Barroso eventually backed off, coming back the following month with a revised line-up minus Buttiglione.
There was one concrete display of Anglo-French unity as the EU took over peace-keeping duties in Bosnia, the fruit of six years of negotiations over how to build a European defense capability. Meanwhile, after the disputed elections in Ukraine, the opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko galvanized his supporters. For EU leaders the crisis posed uncomfortable questions. Although EU membership is off the agenda for Ukraine, it coincided with the run-up to negotiations on the issue with Turkey. More than 40 years after it first knocked on Europe’s door, though, Ankara finally won a starting date, albeit under tough conditions. Beginning membership talks with a large, poor, mainly Muslim country was a historic move that raised fundamental questions about the depth of future European integration and about where the EU’s borders might end. The decision to reach out to Ankara was especially welcome to the British government, which is one of the most ardent supporters of Turkish membership. And the most prominent skeptic? Why France, of course.
