‘A Europe that protects.’ This was Nicolas Sarkozy’s slogan during his presidential campaign. Europe was built to protect us forever from fratricidal war. This is now a given. Today, we expect it to protect us from the global storms of this new century, as fascinating as they are perilous.
This summer’s major crises have given the President of the European Council an opportunity to translate his words into deeds.
On 8 August, Russian troops crossed the Georgian border. It was the first time that an independent country had been invaded by a major neighbouring country since 1991, when Saddam Hussein sought to annex Kuwait. On 12 August, the President of the European Council was in Moscow, and then in Tbilisi. The Russians stopped 40 km from the Georgian capital. Two months later, they were back where they had started. In four days, the 27 European governments had managed to unite behind Nicolas Sarkozy in order to safeguard Georgia’s independence.
On 15 September, the collapse of Lehmann Brothers triggered the financial crisis. Less than a month later, Europe adopted its rescue plan, no less quickly than the Americans. In just one week, the energetic French President successively met Europe’s four largest financial powers, the 15 euro-zone countries and the 27 Heads of Government before going to meet George Bush at Camp David and then the Chinese in Beijing. A radical remedy has been used to beat the credit crisis, and a radical reform of financial capitalism is under way.
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accéder aux travaux de la session plénière du 20 au 23 octobre 2008 à
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nLe 21 octobre, Nicolas Sarkozy est intervenu en séance plénière. Vous
pouvez voir la vidéo de son discours en cliquant
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et lire la version écrite en
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A cette occasion, Alain Lamassoure a publié un
communiqué de
presse
.