Külpolitika - A Magyar Külügyi Intézet folyóirata - 1998 (4. évfolyam)
1998 / 2. szám - ESEMÉNYNAPTÁR - Resumé
Resumé France considers that the creation of a political power able to control economical and social coordination in the framework of the European Union building up of a common foreign and security police is absolutely indispensable. France knows also that Hungary naturally shares this view. Tamás Szemlér The European Policy of France at the Turn of the Millennium In the period following the Second World War, France enjoyed a special position both in European affairs and world policy. While it was clear for everybody that the most important things are decided by the two superpowers, the US and the USSR, France has still laid claim to its earlier Great Power status. France, even after having lost its former colonies, have not renounced of this claim, which presumed that the country is able to influence the solutions of the most important questions of the world and especially those of Europe. This claim, even if by using different tools and methods of expression, is present in the French political thinking from De Gaulle until now. Partly due to some external conditions, partly due to its own initiatives, France enjoyed for a long time such circumstances that supported (at least the illusion) of this so much desired Great Power status. In world policy, the permanent membership in the UN Security Council as a political factor, the independent French nuclear power as an important element of military power have constituted the main pillars of this special status. These factors have also contributed to the strong position of France in Europe, which, can briefly be summarized in the following sentence: embedded in the France in Europe, which, can briefly be summarized in the following sentence: embedded in the European integration process, French political influence was able to counterbalance the newly developing German economic power. In the meanwhile, some "solitary actions" of France - its absence for three decades from the military organisation of NATO, or its sharply expressed positions during the GATT/WTO negotiations - presented the country as the main defender of European interests, above all against the US. At the turn of the 1980s-90s, the political situation in the world as well as inside Europe has fundamentally changed, and these changes have also undermined the basis of French Great Power ambitions. In Europe the French position seems to be weakened by the fact that due to the German reunification, in the heart of Europe a state has been formulated (again) which in addition to its clearer than ever economic leadership (or better to say, as a consequence of this), has political ambitions in the formulation of the future development of Europe. The French tried to limit the German predominance in the integration process with the conclusion of the Maastricht Treaty. Germany accepted Maastricht, but the balance of power 130 Külpolitika
