This Week in Europe, 25 February 2000
Executive Director of the Caribbean Council for Europe
On March 10th France’s President will meet with Caribbean leaders in Martinique. This unique encounter, if practical in outcome, may well be of great significance.
To understand why President Chirac has decided to request this meeting it is necessary to know something about French aspirations for Europe, France’s view of the world and the role that it believes its might play through its départment d’outre mer (DOM.
Just before Christmas, France presented to the European Union (EU) proposals for renewing the special provisions which apply to the DOM within the Union. Although the focus was on economic issues, France’s request to its EU partners placed the DOM in a broader context. In strategic terms, France asserted that the DOM, in regions like the Caribbean, ensured a European presence and influence in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Latin America.
This was in fact a pale reflection of higher levels of French foreign policy and in particular France’s view of the US, the role of small sovereign states in the emerging global balance of power and the need for the EU to assert and evolve its own independent identity by seeking issues that clearly define Europe’s role and presence.
France’s view of the world is unlike that of much of the rest of Europe. France believes that if the EU is to become a major global force it must challenge the US whenever Washington’s policy or influence is not in Europe’s interest. Such an approach, France believes, also helps generate greater EU unity and helps forge a uniquely European identity and policy. This view proceeds in part from a belief that the world is becoming multi-polar and as nations like China, Russia, India, South Africa and Brazil become of significance, new non-ideological alliances with small sovereign states, like those in the Caribbean, will have importance.
In the Caribbean region this is best exemplified by France’s dramatic deepening of its relationship with Cuba at all levels. Unlike most of its EU counterparts France delineates carefully in its relationship with Cuba, between social rights and civic rights. Thus it believes that much of what Cuba has achieved in education and health care is to be welcomed while that nation’s treatment of dissidents and politics is to be constructively criticised. As a result France has established a creative engagement with Havana, has become one of Cuba major trade partners and has made clear that it and the EU should not be diverted by US Congressional pressure or extraterritorial legislation.
The decision by the French President to seek a meeting with Caribbean leaders in Martinique conforms closely to France’s global view. It is in contrast to the approach of other European nations with an interest in the region. They tend to regard the Caribbean region not as a potential EU sphere of political or economic influence but as a region in which the US needs to be encouraged to become more deeply involved.
While it should not be forgotten that France is also driven by other concerns - the financial cost of the DOM, alarm about their economic isolation, post 2008, in a region which will be moving to free trade with the EU and the Americas, and the DOM’s internal and external security – the new French initiative potentially gives the region an opportunity to reposition itself in relation to the US and other partners in the EU. The test will be whether France is prepared to find practical ways to encourage regional development and closer integration between the DOM and the rest of the region.
There are, however, some encouraging first signs. The French Government and its industries have already shown a real willingness at the highest levels to work together with Caribbean groups such as the rum and banana producers, to obtain mutually beneficial outcomes to challenges to the EU regimes for these commodities, either within Lomé or as a result of World Trade Organisation (WTO) challenges.
Beyond this, France has a principled approach on many social issues that relate well to Caribbean concerns. Its government makes clear that there needs to be a social dimension to the present headlong rush to trade liberalisation and the globalisation of business. At the same time France has recognised the vacuum in the Caribbean region left by US indifference and other EU friend’s reluctance to commit themselves to a long-term involvement.
In other words, there are compelling reasons as to why the region as a whole should seek to significantly deepen its relationship with France.
If a new relationship is to emerge it will need careful thought and cultivation in the region. But before then it will require France to indicate in practical terms how it intends to foster a new relationship. French cultural ties are not enough. The most important and convincing arguments for a deeper relationship must come through positive responses to requests from the Caribbean side for practical support on issues such as closer trade and investment ties with the DOM; French support for Caribbean concerns at the World Trade Organisation; the deepening of inter-sectoral industry cooperation between the DOM and the rest of the region; joint DOM/regional programmes for all social partners making use of the post Lomé arrangements, EU support for the DOM and French bilateral assistance; and agreement on how France can help foster a new Cuban relationship with Europe within the post Lomé arrangement.
The decision by the French President to meet Caribbean leaders in the region is important. It is an approach that originates in policies markedly different to that of other EU member states. It offers regional leaders the opportunity to create a basis for a new relationship with France, Europe and the US if that is, the encounter offers the substance to match its promise.