The Vancouver Sun December 3, 1996
FRENCH MINISTER ON TOUR TO SELL EU IDEAL
The campaign is up against growing public opinion
that sees integration as unbridled capitalism.
By Nick Spicer, Southam Newspapers
PARIS -- It looks like one of our national unity campaigns.
A minister travels the countryside telling people about the benefits of
cooperation, about how jobs can only come by sticking together, about
mutual understanding between peoples.
Constitutionally challenged Canada? No, France.
French European Affairs Minister Michel Barnier has been touring
France since Oct. 15 with a triple objective: giving Europe a bigger place in
national politics, listening to people's views on Europe, and providing people
with information on the future of France in the European Union.
He's up against a public opinion that's turning away from the ideal of
European integration because people associate it with unbridled capitalism
and the 1992 Maastricht Treaty's guidelines on budgetary reform.
"The big problem we're having is that people don't see any solutions in
Europe. They see it as an additional constraint in their lives, but the
opposite is true," said Pierre-Jerome Henin, Barnier's public relations
officer.
"People don't understand that their problems can't be solved on a
national basis, but only on an international -- European -- basis," he added.
Henin's view is supported by a 1996 poll commissioned eaerlier this
year by the European Commission showing that Europe's goal of integration
is in danger of being supported only by national elites.
It suggested that wile over 90 per cent of high level decision-makers in
Europe think their country's membership in the EU is a "good thing," only
48 per cent of other Europeans do.
And 15 per cent of people who aren't politicians, union heads, teachers,
journalists or religious leaders consider belonging to the EU a "bad thing."
There's also growing opposition in both France and the rest of Europe
to the next step in Europeanb integration, the single currency to be called the
euro.
During the minister's visit last Thursday to Soissons in the northern
region of Picardy, 150 anti-EU union members demonstrated as Barnier
opened one of the regional forums of the National Dialogue for Europe.
Barnier is just beginning a six month campaign to involve 1,000 youth
volunteers, and broken into "regional" and "national" phases. The operation
has a budget of $13 million Cdn.. but the European Commission is picking
up half the tab.
The centre-right government is actively pro-European but has to face
down the Euroskeptic division within its own ranks.
And as a final decision on which EU countries will join a single
currency is 14 months away, European integration will likely become a main
election issue. The ruling coalition faces voters early in 1998.
