Well that was a tawdry exchange, wasn’t it? A phone-call would have sufficed. But no, that would be so discreet as to be pointless. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, currently holidaying in the Cote d’Azur, needles the European Commission President in a public letter. By return of post, Jose Manuel Barroso, also on holiday, publicly hits back. And all in the name of flood-ridden Pakistan.
The upshot is that there are now two proposals in the pipelines for making the EU’s response to catastrophes more efficient – a French one and a European Commission one.
The two politicians seem to bring out the worst in each other. Barroso appears to excite Sarkozy’s tendency to try to solve all problems personally (be it the financial crisis, French football or the EU’s response to disasters). Meanwhile, Sarkozy brings out the plaintive and the “so there!” in Barroso.
Just to recap. Le Figaro reported on Monday that Sarkozy had sent a letter to Barroso urging him to “do more” for Pakistan.
“I am counting on you to ensure that the EU shows unity and determination,” he wrote, adding that France will soon propose that the EU set up a rapid reaction force “based on member states’ resources.”
He also called on Barroso to ensure the EU’s visibility for its charity-giving efforts in Pakistan, where at least 2000 have died and around 20 million have been affected by the devastating floods. Visibility in disaster areas is dear to the French politician’s heart. Such French-inspired talk was last heard around the Haiti earthquake at the beginning of this year.
Barroso rose (at length) to the bait. A two page letter pointed out that the commission was the first to react on 30 July with €30 million in aid and again on 11 August with €10 million. He also noted that the commission is already looking into improving the EU’s disaster response capacity, while pointing out that when a European disaster force was formally suggested by the then French commissioner Michel Barnier in 2006, member states were not falling over themselves to endorse the idea.
For good measure, on Wednesday, Kristalina Georgieva, the commissioner in charge of disaster relief, was dispatched to give a press conference outlining all that the EU has done so far as well as to announce a further €30 million in aid. She is also to be sent to Pakistan to raise the EU’s visibility.
All that remains, now that the epistolary chest-beating is over, is to see who comes up with a disaster plan first – Paris or Brussels. Truly the European Union is not well-served by its top politicians at the moment.
