US to face EU weakened by French no vote

WASHINGTON - The United States will now have to deal with a European Union that has been weakened by the French rejection of a European draft constitution when Washington needs it as a strong partner in resolving a number of international issues, US experts said.
"I think the dominant view will be that the United States now faces a host of weak European leaders," said Charles Kupchan, director of European studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
"Blair is weak, Chirac is now weak, Schroeder is headed toward what looks like defeat, Berlusconi just had to change his cabinet and that spells trouble for the United States that needs help in the world and my sense is that perspective will dominate any other," Kupchan said.
"Finally, at a time when the Bush administration had demonstrated a renewed willingness to deal with Europe as a union, the EU may be missing in action," said Siman Serfaty, an expert on European issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"What can now be expected from the EU and its members -- in Iran, but also Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and elsewhere in the Middle East; in Ukraine but also in Southeast Europe and toward Russia; in North Korea and in China; in the Sudan?" he asked.
"The question is daunting: if not with the EU and its members, with whom; if not now, when?" Serfaty said.
"We were seeing since January the start of the process of revitalization of a new transatlantic agenda," pointed out Samuel Wells, an expert on European issues at the Woodrow Wilson Institute. "I think that will slow down" in the wake of the French vote, he said.
According to Wells, "the US government and analysts generally will probably take the EU less seriously as a player in international politics."
However, Kupchan does not believe the French referendum "will have any immediate impact on US-European relations."
The State Department said Monday that Washington expected the European Union to remain an effective partner "however the EU evolves."
According to Kupchan, the administration of US President George W. Bush is somewhat divided on how to deal with Europe.
"There will be those who prefer a weaker, a more decentralized Europe, the so-called hardliners, and others, primarily in the State Department who see this as a setback and will prefer a stronger and more unified Europe that could ultimately be a partner of the United States," he said.
Wells shares that view. "The neoconservatives and a very large group in Congress, who prefer to deal with Europe bilaterally and not to work through the European Union, will feel inclined to do it," he said.
"There is a significant group of policy and political elites who feel the major foreign policy issue is China and I think they will now have arguments that more attention should be paid to China and less to the European Union," Wells pointed out.
US newspapers on Monday described the resounding French "no" to the EU constitution as damaging for Europe and devastating for French President Jacques Chirac.
Unhappy French voters who rejected the proposed European constitution were "thumbing their noses at the country's governing elite," a Washington Post article said.
French President Jacques Chirac "smiled stiffly as he struggled to mask his disappointment" in televised remarks late Sunday, The New York Times said.
"The vote, which made France the first country to reject the treaty, has deeply wounded the French president," The Times said. "The vote stalls the forward momentum of Europe and makes it more vulnerable to economic and political uncertainty.
"It could paralyze decision-making in the European Union for months, complicate the process of admitting new members, and make it even more difficult to impose discipline on members' spending and inflation levels," The Times pointed out.
But, added Kupchan, "there may be certain members of the US government that are not unhappy to see Chirac's political fortunes take a downturn because of the legacy of the rift over Iraq."

05/31/2005 12:33 GMT