Sarkozy to profit most from Cameron blunder

Sarkozy is about to realize De Gaulle’s dream rebooted : an intergovernmental Europe, without Britain. The cherry on the cake is the US backing to this new Europe much to the detriment of the UK-US special relationship.

Though the media has long been speaking of Germany dominating the Franco-German relationship, Cameron’s behavior tilted the game towards Sarko. While the Germans would have preferred a full-fledged Treaty amendment, the Elysee has always favored a two-speed Europe. And now not only was this kickstarted at the summit, but the British diplomatic suicide has opened up the road for a political remake of Europe. Let’s see what are the immediate consequences :

• Britain has pushed Germany deeper into the arms of France. As Germany is keen to avoid dominating Europe, it will need a partner. Today this leaves only France – which improves the French position towards Germany as they know Germany has no other partner left to balance the French.
• Cameron also closed the door on Germany’s preferred choice of a supranational solution, leaving the French intergovernmental plan as the only option on the table.
• The traditional partners of Britain are silenced – at the next meeting of the financial attachés I would be surprised if the usual Czech and Scandinavian support would be as strong as before. This means that Britain may just be outvoted on financial regulation – which has practically never happened in the past. (Which makes the whole “defending the City” argument a pure nonsense)
• The US has clearly backed a Treaty based solution. The UK-US split is an unexpected coup for the traditionally US-friendly Sarkozy. Just the right occasion to reboot French-US relations before the elections in both countries next year.

The big question mark to me is how Sarkozy is going to play his hand now. Can he keep his new statesmanlike attitude in squeezing the most out of this situation:

• Can he capitalize on the UK’s diplomatic weakness and the desperate need of Cameron to show that he is not isolated into squeezing the best military deal for France out of the nascent Franco-British military cooperation?
• Can he establish a special French-US relationship? We have already seen the seeds of this in the cooperation between the two countries in the Middle East, especially on sanctions against Iran.
• And most importantly, will this turn him into the statesman of De Gaullian heights in the eyes of the French public? This will decide the fate of the French elections.