By Richard Norman

There was a time when the Bush Administration held up Libyan WMD concessions as an example of a (lonely) diplomatic triumph, and Tony Blair visited Muammar Gaddafi in Tripoli to hail a "new relationship." For a time, increased economic and political ties followed. But when five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor, speciously accused of deliberately infecting children with HIV at a hospital in Benghazi, were sentenced to death by Libya’s Supreme Court, Col. Gaddafi’s regime again became isolated. With the release and pardon of the foreign medical workers last week, a new chapter in European-Libyan relations can begin. And that possibility appears largely due to the initiative of French President Nicholas Sarkozy. While visits to Tripoli this month by his wife, Cecilia, were not always perfectly coordinated with the EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana’s office, and the German government among others have accused the Sarkozys of stealing the show and grandstanding, these are superficial complaints. The substance and potential of the agreement and the boldness of the French President’s vision were evident on Wednesday as new bilateral agreements on security, energy, and health care were announced after a meeting between Sarkozy and Gaddafi. While the majority of foreign policy time and energy goes into a European posture related to Russia and Turkey, Sarkozy has shifted the focus to what he believes is Europe’s (and certainly France’s) more immediate and amenable neighbourhood, the Mediterranean. Plans for encouraging a Mediterranean Union and increased integration of North African economies was one of the more original proposals in his victory speech this past May. From the IHT:

Such a union, even if primarily economic, would necessarily involve the member countries in discussions of controversial issues like Turkish membership in the European Union and illegal immigration via North Africa. It would bring Israel and its Arab neighbors into a new assembly that Sarkozy apparently hopes could tackle the intractable problem of Middle East peace. … He wants to anchor regional cooperation in the fields of energy, security, counter-terrorism and immigration on a trade agreement, and create a Mediterranean Investment Bank, modeled on the European Investment Bank, that would help develop the economies on the eastern and southern edge of the region. He has offered French expertise on nuclear energy in return for access to North Africa’s gas reserves.

The Germans, increasingly wary of Sarkozy, are skeptical of this idea. And they had harsh words for his recent agreements with Libya.

The chairman of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee, Ruprecht Polenz, warned Sarkozy against weakening Europe with his solo activities. "In foreign policy there should be agreement with European partners," he told Reuters Friday. "Even if it takes time, France should act to strengthen the common European foreign and security policies." Polenz, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, said that in his opinion Libya was not stable and did not respect human rights. He agreed that the country should be helped to rejoin the international community — "but not with nuclear reactors." The head of Germany’s Green Party, Reinhard Bütikofer, slammed the deal in more outspoken terms. Speaking to the Passau Neue Presse newspaper on Friday, he accused Sarkozy of "reckless and nationalistic" behavior, and questioned whether one should trust a dictator’s word even if he had renounced nuclear weapons.[Der Speigel]

The German coalition government is at the moment incapable of bold policy suggestions; instead, since the end of its EU presidency (which didn’t accomplish anything of significance with regard to its two main goals–constitutional reform and the Middle East), it appears to have been relegated to the peanut gallery, bested by a more imaginative and substantial force. Where once the Anglo-Americans applauded Libya for its concessions, for its interest in rejoining the community of nations, the last few years have seen little progress in relations on the part of Europeans. Now Sarkozy has seized an opportunity to enter into a relationship of constructive engagement, discussion, and debate with Gaddafi. Domestic reforms in Libya are likely to come slowly, but Mr Sarkozy is right to put himself forward and pursue an influential relationship rather than to sit on the sidelines and snipe. -Richard This was our 100th post!