Jun 20, 2008, 16:30 GMT
Brussels - When France takes on the European Union's six- month rotating presidency on July 1, it faces a mountain to climb.
'It's a lot to ask of any presidency. France wanted to handle all these major issues, but they are going to have a hard time finding a solution,' Piotr Kaczynski, expert on EU reform at the Brussels-based Centre for European Policy Studies, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
In January, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that by the end of the French presidency, the EU would have a common policy on energy, defence and migration.
That would already be an ambitious goal for any presidency, since the three issues impinge directly on member states' security and sovereignty, and have regularly sparked heated arguments in the past.
But in recent weeks the global concern over soaring oil prices and the political crisis caused by Ireland's rejection of the EU's Lisbon treaty have leapfrogged to the top of the agenda - piling yet more work on an already loaded plate.
'We have to address two matters of urgency: the cost of oil and the (EU) institutional problems,' Sarkozy admitted on Friday after crisis talks with EU peers in Brussels.
Indeed, the official statement approved by heads of state and government at the end of their summit left no doubt that the French presidency will have its work cut out for it.
According to the text, EU members are set to hold a debate on how to react to Ireland's treaty rejection at their next summit on October 15. Sarkozy, as chairman, is likely to come under massive pressure to forge a common EU position on the issue.
At the same time, officials from the EU executive, the European Commission, are pushing for a deal at the summit on a huge package of laws aimed at fundamentally changing the bloc's energy use.
Experts agree that forging consensus on that point among all 27 member states will, in itself, be a full-time job for diplomats.
On top of that, EU leaders also set up a potential battle royal for the summit by calling on the commission to suggest how they could offset the rise in oil prices by granting tax breaks - tax being another perennial source of interstate rows.
Of course, one solution would be for the presidency to postpone one or more of the topics to its second summit, on December 11-12.
But Friday's declaration calls for work in so many other areas that that may simply not be possible.
It insists, for example, that the council of member states 'intensify work' on finalizing a system similar to the US Green Card for attracting elite immigrants, and make sure that the EU's border- control Schengen Information System II comes online in September.
It also calls on the council to find further ways to bring food prices down by reforming the ever-controversial Common Agricultural Policy, and to consider proposals on how to crack down on speculators in the oil and food markets - another politically explosive topic.
Beyond those specific issues, France will also be expected to press ahead with EU accession negotiations with Turkey and Croatia - despite the fact and Sarkozy has already sparked controversy by saying that there can be no enlargement without Lisbon.
And it is set to launch a union of EU and Mediterranean states, organize summits with Ukraine, South Africa, India, Canada, China, Brazil and Russia, and press for a global deal on climate change.
While it all adds up to a workload which would daunt many an EU leader, observers say that if anyone can pull it off, the restlessly energetic Sarkozy would be the man.
But diplomats also say that his energy has hitherto been expended more in generating ideas than in finding broad-based support for them - leaving his chances of success, at the very least, open to doubt.
Indeed, on Friday he set the scene for a showdown with the commission's free-market wing by blaming the Irish 'no' vote on the policies of the executive's trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson.
It all adds up to a massive challenge for a president who is already under pressure at home.
'Some presidencies build consensus from the bottom up. Some do it top down, and that's the way Sarkozy seems to be working,' one EU diplomat told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
'It might work. But it's going to take an awful lot of effort,' the diplomat added.
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