When Nicolas goes up the suspenders to José-Manuel

(BRUXELLES2) It's a letter from Nicolas (Sarkozy) addressed to José-Manuel (Barroso) and written during the weekend of August 15th. The tone is polite. But a nothing threatening. "The mobilization of Europeans must be total" thunders "Che" Nicolas. Admittedly, Europe has already released 40 million euros in humanitarian aid, sent a few teams of experts and activated its civil protection mechanism. But this is very little in the eyes of the French president. "Europe can do more by committing to cover even more immediate humanitarian needs(NB: the UN has launched an appeal for $459 million but only a quarter of the sum has been raised so far). -he - "to mobilize national military, air and naval logistical means, for the delivery of international aid, within the framework of NATO."

Sarkozy's three recommendations

Europe must move its butt... Sarkozy admonishes the President of the Commission: "I am counting on you (the President of the Commission) for the European Union to show its unity and its determination and bring the international community with it to prevent a humanitarian disaster". And he outlines the roadmap for it: 1° to strengthen humanitarian aid; 2° to plan now for the future, reconstruction, by mobilizing its two financial instruments (the Instrument for Stability and the Instrument for Cooperation and Development ), 3° Acquire a "real European capacity"response to the crisis. Haiti and the fires in Russia (where European coordination has been a tad failing) have demonstrated, continues the President, "we must draw the consequences of such situations".

• Clearly, Sarkozy goes up the braces not only to the President of the European Commission but also to Commissioner Georgieva, to say the least absent these days, as well as to the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs. Cathy Ashton continues to demonstrate that if she manages to manage institutional politics (the adoption of the first decision on the diplomatic service is proof of this), that she begins to practice diplomacy (involvement in Gaza or the negotiation of an agreement to prosecute the pirates proves it), it still has a hard time appreciating crisis management. This is what the EU still lacks! Sarkozy commits, however, an oddity, in my opinion, to put the French means at the disposal of NATO. This is in contradiction with the content and the objective of the letter (strengthening the European Union) and also with its previous commitments (getting more involved in NATO to strengthen Defense Europe). It's quite the opposite here...

(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)