French President Nicolas Sarkozy has played down the Irish rejection of EU's Lisbon Treaty that overshadowed the French EU presidency, which began on July 1, and instead decided to attend to issues that ordinary citizens more care about.
"Project" EU citizens
In a statement on the French EU presidency website, Sarkozy said France will try to tackle issues such as climate change, immigration, energy, food safety, health, and economy and finance, which are "at the heart of the concerns of Europe's citizens."
He warned that the 27-nation bloc would be in danger if it did not turn more attention to issues more relevant to citizens' daily lives.
"We have to think about how we can make this Europe a means to protect Europeans in their daily lives ... We must not be afraid of this word – 'protection'," he said.
Sarkozy's remarks came amid criticism that EU leaders have spent too much time on institutional reform and somewhat ignored the day-to-day concerns of EU citizens.
The largely incomprehensible Lisbon Treaty, rejected by the Irish voters last month, has taken EU leaders years to discuss and draft and has diverted too much attention from issues considered more important by EU citizens, analysts say.
And the endless debate over EU institutional reforms has dampened ordinary Europeans' expectation from the enlarged union.
According to a recent Euro barometer poll, only 52 percent of EU citizens consider membership to be a good thing for their country. The figure is only 48 percent in France.
Sarkozy, who has seen his support rate dropping in France, would feel pressured to play down some of his ambitious projects, including the Lisbon Treaty and the so-called "Union for the Mediterranean," and begin to address more urgent issues, analysts say.
