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New York, N.Y.

JIM HOAGLAND: Good morning. My name is Jim Hoagland. I work for the Washington Post. And I have a specialty here at the Council on Foreign Relations. I’m occasionally called on to introduce people who genuinely need no introduction at all. I think there’s a message contained in that. That’s certainly the case of Valery Giscard d’Estaing, the former president of France, the president of the European Convention, that’s written the draft constitutional treaty [for the European Union (EU)], and the man who I think perhaps more than any other person represents the idea of a European elder statesman, what we in Washington call “a wise man,” or the French call “un sage.” I think many of us who have had the occasion in recent years to see President Giscard d’Estaing in Paris and then in Brussels always have come away knowing a lot more about Europe and about the state of the world when the conversation is finished.

It’s useful here perhaps to recall a very few essential facts of this extraordinary life. President Valery Giscard d’Estaing was actually born in Koblenz, Germany, on February 2nd, 1926. His father was a senior civil servant stationed in Germany then. Our guest served as a young man in the French Resistance and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. Those of you who know the French meritocracy will understand the significance of the fact that after going through France’s most elite schools, Giscard d’Estaing joined the Inspection Generale des Finances in 1952, and four years later was elected for his first term in the National Assembly. He was a phenomenally young finance minister under Charles de Gaulle, and at the ripe old age of 48 was elected president of the French Republic. That was in 1974. He served until 1981.

And if you look back, perhaps clearer today than it was then for those of us who lived through it, but that was a remarkable era, one that seems very distant today, when a few key international leaders actually subordinated domestic concerns, made sacrifices in their own politics for the international good. That was the era, of course, of [German Chancellor] Helmut Schmidt, [U.S. President] Jimmy Carter, Valery Giscard d’Estaing, who worked together in remarkable ways.

Of course, President Giscard d’Estaing worked with Helmut Schmidt on the forerunner, really the system that created the euro. He was the host of the first summit of the leaders of industrial democracies, which today has become the G-8 [Group of Eight]. He was at the Guadalupe summit that opened the way for the deployment of Euromissiles to counter the Soviet SS-20s [missile systems], one of the key events, in my view, of the Cold War, really of the ending of the Cold war. And he began a reassessment, in fact, of [former French President] Charles de Gaulle’s aloof equidistance posture on military alliance, creating, perhaps, the most effective example of French-American military cooperation during the [Democratic Republic of the Congo’s] Kolwezi crisis in 1978 [when 700 Africans and 170 Europeans died fighting rebels occupying Kolwezi]. After losing the French presidency in 1981, he remained actively involved in French and European politics, serving in the National Assembly, the European Parliament and, in December 2001, became president of the Convention on the Future of Europe. He has also written half a dozen books, including a novel. And just a few months ago, in December, he was invested as a member of the French Academy, gaining the distinction of being one of the 40 immortals. One of his critics had the temerity or took the occasion of that to say that President Giscard d’Estaing had had the temerity— wants to speak English in public just before his election. And this was to be held against him forever, apparently. [Laughter] Fortunately, it wasn’t held against him, and he was in the Academy, and he speaks today to us in English.

Before we get to that pleasure, I have two housekeeping rules to note. Please turn off your cell phones. And this conversation, unusually, will be on the record. The Q&A session will be for the record.

I wanted to start with a brief conversation with the president, focusing on Europe, on the European Draft Treaty, and perhaps also to stray a little bit into French attitudes towards Europe these days. So, Mr. President, I’d like to begin by welcoming you, of course, and then asking you a question. That’s what we journalists do. I think you’re familiar with that.

GISCARD D’ESTAING: Well, thank you for your presentation— very accurate. But I should have been excused to speak in English before my election because my English was very bad. So it cannot be used against me. [Laughter]

HOAGLAND: You mean, if it had been perfect, that would have been a problem? I wonder if I could start by asking you about the referenda that are going to be held in European countries, because in addition to the votes by parliaments to ratify the Draft Treaty, there are something like nine countries that are going to hold a referendum— I think four of them crucial— and that will culminate with Britain in the fall of 2006.

When you were writing the constitution, when you were sitting in Brussels and helping guide the writing of the constitution, did you anticipate that the ratification process would be so extended both in terms of the number of countries where there could be serious challenges to the treaty, to approval of the treaty, and the time that it would take? Could you perhaps explain the process that you expected to take place and how that’s changed by the proliferation of referenda?

D’ESTAING: Well, first, a notion about what we did— we did it as a team. The convention was led by four people: two vice presidents— one was Giuliano Amato, a former chief of government of Italy; the other was Jean-Luc Dehaene, who is the former prime minister of Belgium— and the general secretary was a British one. It was Sir John Kerr, who had been ambassador here and whom certainly you know.

HOAGLAND: Yes.

D’ESTAING: So it’s a collective work. I was the chairman. I chaired more than Washington did in Philadelphia, because, as you know, Washington did not utter a word during the convention. I was a little bit more active. But I always tried to keep it as a team working, because one of the feature is our constitution is a diplomatic treaty. What was drafted, incidentally— it’s not what’s different, it was a new text. But we had former treaties, four major treaties— Rome, Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice --which existed. And legally, what we do up to now in Europe is under the diplomatic process. It is handled by the foreign secretaries, which is curious, because now the matter of the questions are not diplomatic; in fact, they’re economic and monetary competition. That is still the foreign ministers.

And the rule remains unanimity, because when you sign a treaty, you sign it or not. You cannot be imposed to sign a treaty by anyone. So it’s a process which is French. It is a constitution under the form of a classical diplomatic treaty.

We knew that the process of ratification will be difficult. But before ratification, we had to have adoption, an adoption of the text. Suppose the agreement of the 25, the 15 members and the two— 10 new members who were coming during the period, because we started at 15, and we had the 10 new members joining at the end. And we needed [inaudible] and no refusal by one, which explains the difficulty of the exercise, because sometimes, you know, [inaudible] opposed, and so it’s [inaudible] against it, and they said, in a sort of romantic way, “We will keep the Nice Treaty or die.”

So we have to maneuver against such threats or fears, because we needed to have the agreement of 25.

And then since it is a treaty legally, it must be ratified. The ratifying process everywhere in the world takes between a year and a half and two years because you have commissions, committees, consultation, one chamber or two chambers. So it takes about that. You cannot rush it more. But in fact you have two processes of ratification. One is through parliament. It has been adopted by 15 countries out of 25, including a very important one like Germany. Germany was ratified by parliamentary process due to the German constitution, the German Basic Law of ‘48, which do not create referendum. It was U.S. [inaudible] the American scholarship. So 15 will ratify by parliament, no problem, because in Europe, all the big parties, except the Communists, or the remains of the Communists, on one side and the far right on the other side, all the others support the constitution. So when you go to parliament, finished.

But 10 countries [inaudible], nine— one which is doubtful up to now, which is Poland— 10 countries will have referendum. Why? Because in some countries, a constitution is something which comes from people, the democratic aspiration and all that, which must be expressed, are supported by the nation, by people. And when the founding fathers here started their text as speaking in the name of people, so a referendum is more in line with the nature, with the content of the text.

Up to now, we have only one, which is Spain, very interesting, because Spain had a political crisis last year, they changed their government in March, which was a sweeping change because the mood from the [Prime Minister Jose Maria] Aznar Popular Party Coalition to a socialist coalition, so you could have imagined some division, not at all. They voted by 77 yes, 17 no, the rate of participation being relatively low, because 43 percent, but it’s above the vote in the last election in Spain. So it didn’t go down; it went a little up.

We will have problems in France, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Britain, in fact, and maybe in Netherlands, because they have a difficult situation. At the moment, they’re quite [inaudible] since they are divided on the issues. And they’re voting also for referendum. When you look at them, most of them will give a “yes” as an answer. Even yesterday, because probably they knew that I was coming here, there was a poll in Great Britain who gave an advance of 1 percentage point to vote yes. At the moment, [inaudible] evaluation is to have in the middle of 2006 a ratification of the constitution. And your question, “Is it too long?”--well, it’s too long, but you cannot avoid this. And it means that, practically, the starting date for the new constitution will be January 1st, 2007, I guess, which is not so far away.

HOAGLAND: Let’s go back to the Polish cry of “Give me Nice or death.” The assumption is that if one of the countries, one or more of the countries says no, then the EU cannot advance beyond the Nice Treaty. It stays with the Nice Treaty. Do you believe that assumption is correct, that you will be able to say or will start a dissolution process? And what are the main disadvantages of having to stay with the Nice Treaty?

D’ESTAING: Well, you ask me this question, Mr. Hoagland. But I said I will save the answer yet. We debated this in the beginning, because we are not sure that we’ll have unanimity, I mean, it’s 25 very different countries— old and new, big and small, rich and poor, and all that— significant. So we knew that probably the problem could come.

If it falls short of marginally open country— that is a country that in the past doubted participation to Europe was one time yes, one time no— we will leave the door open anyway.

And we introduced an article, a special article that Sweden to leave the Union, because partly of the American and British press which often describes the European Union as a jail or a cage. When nations are in a jail they cannot get out and [inaudible] which is partly true, as I say [laughter], but not to that extremity. And we want to say, if you want to go out you can go out. So there is an article the secession right doesn’t exist in the constitution, as you know, but which is normal because the number is higher and it may happen in a country one day the majority wants to leave. They could, like the Norwegians did, for instance, or as [inaudible] now.

So [inaudible], it will go out in what we call the European Economic Area, which is a free market, open market, the open market open to members, but no participation [inaudible].

But then the problem would be if two or three or four countries say no. If in these countries you have— or two major countries, the constitution is finished. But what is interesting is that there is no possibility of starting a new negotiation, because we worked too hard, we looked at all the alternatives, and there is no room for new negotiations, because this new negotiation will be of a minimal Europe, not the maximal Europe. And the countries who have voted yes [inaudible] yes, we will start the negotiating again. So there’s no chance for a re-negotiation. There is no possibility for amendment, for the process of ratification is ratifying the text as it is.

So what will happen for instance if Britain at the end says no? The polls up to two days ago indicated that when Britons are asked, “Do you like the constitution?”--they say no. “Do you want to leave Europe?”--they say no. Now, if this situation happens, they will have probably to vote again. But to vote on a special question which is debated between the members, it will be different: “Do you oppose being a member of the European Union with its new constitution?” They say no. If you say no, you’re out, and if you say yes, you stay in Europe with the constitution. So that will probably be the final issue on that point.

HOAGLAND: If I could ask you two more things. Americans obviously wonder the age-old question, “What’s in it for us?” What do you see as the advantages, or perhaps the disadvantages, of the constitution coming into effect for the United States? And let me focus it on a specific case. Let’s say that the constitution is adopted, and we have some situation that closely resembles that of Iraq. Would Europe have a common position at that point? Would it be impossible for the U.K.[United Kingdom] under this new constitution to go into a situation like Iraq?

D’ESTAING: Well, clearly you have two main advantages viewed from the U.S. point of view. The first one is that the constitution, the first article— you know, this is a real constitution, it’s not a big book. It’s real. That is what you will have to have being the constitution, the reason being it’s not the same size, but not also in print, and it’s because we have to add at the end what we call the acquis communautaire; that is, the law that has been already opposed by the other countries, which did not happen in Philadelphia, for instance, because there was no legislation before— you start after.

But since we are [inaudible] canceling or nullifying all the former treaties, if there was not some text to keep the existing decisions, it would be an empty nest. So we need the real constitution there, and the changes are there. That’s all. [Inaudible] we have to put this on the table in which there is nothing new until the consolidation of what has been voted before.

So, vis-a-vis the U.S., first, I wrote two articles, two and three, expressed the values of the union and the objectives of the union, and they are quite a substance. They are very similar to yours, very similar. So it will indicate that basically in the world of [inaudible] you have two groups who officially share the same values. And we go to many details in that about the rights of equality between the women, freedom of expression, protection of children— a lot of things— like you do. So it means that there will be some two cultural pillar of the Western world: the U.S. with its Constitution, and Europe as such with a very similar set of values and objectives.

The second interest for the U.S. will be the stability of the partner, because there will be a stable president of the European countries elected for two years and a half, and can be renewed once. It means it will be a five-year term, normally. So— and there will be a foreign secretary appointed by the same process for five years. So instead of having this rotation, which is very— well, I cannot understand how [inaudible] it is to have this consultation, American— Europe-American consultation in which the American president said that the man he has in front of him will never be the same one next time, which is insufferable, I think, will be changed because Europe will have five years term. So you will have stable interlocutors. It will be true for the president, it will be true for the foreign secretary.

Your question is, will there be defense and will there be bilateral room for influence or agreement with this new system? Yes, but less and less. In the text, all the major decisions must be taken by unanimity on foreign affairs. So in a crisis like Iraq, unanimity was or would have been impossible and would remain impossible. But there is quite a process of deliberation to try to create unanimity. At the beginning, it will not function very well, probably, but through the time, with a single foreign minister chairing the meeting of all the foreign secretaries every month, it will create convergence.

So I suppose that for the first period, [inaudible] for the worse, it will look as it is. You will have contact with Tony Blair, with [German Foreign Affairs Minister] Joschka Fischer, but also with the European leaders, because they will come, and they will go on the TV, on CNN and Fox and so on. Later on, probably the focus will move to the relationship between the U.S. and Europe, probably. And the rest will exist, will subside, but paying some question of preparation, understanding, but not a major [inaudible] decision, as it was in the Iraqi war.

But it is interesting, when President Bush came a fortnight ago, and you certainly noticed that the reaction he got was rather similar all over Europe. You have not a part of Europe which was warm, friendly; and ah, you know, the press was cold and negative, no, but about the same climate all over Europe. And when you said some of the issues of the time the Europeans are coalescing a little. You have an example for that for the Iran action concerning nuclear proliferation.

HOAGLAND: My last question, sir. At least one French political leader is advocating a yes vote on the European constitution, because it will make it much more difficult for Turkey to eventually become a member. Do you agree with that view? Can you talk about what you see as the relationship between the European vote, the European treaty and Turkish membership, and perhaps more generally the concept of neighborhood? The European Union has developed a neighborhood concept about North Africa, Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, as a way of keeping them short of full membership, it seems to some of us. How do you see those points?

D’ESTAING: Well, you have two questions. If you like it, I can answer the second one, if there is a demand for that. The reason for which we believe that the entry of Turkey is not a realistic approach— let’s put this aside for a while— but the linkage between the vote on the constitution and the debate on Turkey, well, it’s linkage which has been created by the leaders, because the Turkish problem is an old one, [and] what is said or published about it is generally false.

Many of you— and you are great experts— believe that [inaudible] commitment to the Turkish entrance, and then you believe that there are some criterion and if Turkey respects the criterion, they have a right to enter. Those are false, technically false. The main deliberation concerning the Turkish entry has been held in Copenhagen in 1993, although [inaudible]. There was a time that we were contemplating the entry of the former Soviet group countries into the Union. And the statement made by the countries are a special [inaudible] for Turkey, the case of Turkey. And in that article it is said we will work in order to try to improve the existing cooperation with Turkey, existing cooperation with Turkey, with the view of creating a customs union. No membership is mentioned there. And after that, you have special declarations for the Eastern European countries with the criterion that these are only for the Eastern European countries.

So what is said about this Turkish issue is very awkward and creates confusion, [inaudible]. The French people are [inaudible]. The French people already think enlargement went too far— too fast, and they are probably right, because we needed, with Germany, Italy, and Benelux countries, we needed almost 40 years to join. And then the last one, they were able to decide in ‘92, ‘93 [inaudible] all that, and they joined 10 years later. So the deal was shorter, the preparation was [inaudible]. So the French are already worried about enlargement.

And then it is announced that October 3rd we will start a new process of enlargement vis-a-vis a country which will be the most populated of the Union when it joins; it will have about 90 million inhabitants; the poorest one, because the standard of living is 10 percent of the [inaudible] of the European Union; and not located in Europe, that’s it. So they’re against. And they think this constitution, we cannot understand, it’s complicated, probably in a page somewhere is a different things to help the Turks to enter into Europe, so we vote no. The point is that there is nothing in the constitution to take any sort of decision for new enlargement. There is just an article for possible enlargement and the process of admission, which is limited in our text, like in the former treaties, to European countries. You must qualify as being a European country before joining, which is very important when you have got a lot of other demands.

So, two months ago, people in France, who normally would have voted “yes” for the constitution, said we will vote “no” because we don’t want Turkey to join. And that has been a very interesting debate because some people of the “yes” camp said, “Please, please, don’t say a word about Turkey, because if you say this, people will vote no.” But some other people, some very sensible, open-minded people— including me— propose another strategy, which is to say they are different questions. The constitution is a way of making— functioning with its members, and you have a normal problem, which is, will you, at the proper time, support or not the entry of new members. And what’s interesting is that people reacted positively. In the last poll, the “yes” went up and the “no” to Turkey went up also. So it indicates there is a sort of de-connection, decoupling between the two, and people are able or will be able to say “yes” to the constitution and to keep their right or intention, at the proper time, to say “no” to new admission.

HOAGLAND: So, if I understand correctly, you think it’s a mistake to link the two questions?

D’ESTAING: Yes, it is.

HOAGLAND: I’d like to throw the questioning now open to the floor. Just to remind you, wait for the microphone to come to you. I’ll remind you again, both the answers and the questions and comments are on the record. If you have one question, try to keep it brief. If you have a comment, keep it even briefer so we can get to as many people as possible. If you would, state your name and affiliation. Yes, sir?

QUESTIONER: My name is Steven Kass, Carter, Ledyard, and Milburn. What should be done about Iran?

D’ESTAING: Well, we will not apply the European constitution to Iran. [Laughter] No! Well, I will first—

QUESTIONER: That’s a promise?

D’ESTAING: I will first answer the questions on the constitution. And Iran, while it’s important by itself, if we have time enough, I will keep in mind your question and answer it at the end.

HOAGLAND: OK. Yes?

QUESTIONER: Bill Drozdiak, formerly of the Washington Post, now the American Council on Germany. Mr. President, the constitution will make the biggest changes in a common and foreign security policy. Do you see one day when France, and Britain, for that matter, would be willing to subsume their seats on the United Nations Security Council into one seat for the European Union?

D’ESTAING: We debated this. We debated, in fact, two issues of this sort. One is a representation in the financial and academic institutions, and the other, representation into the U.N. We achieved a conclusion for the military and financial institutions, which is to go towards one single seat and one single speaker; the difficulty being that all the European countries up to now do not belong to the Euro Group. And if there is one single representation, it will represent, of course, the Euro system in international IMF [International Monetary Fund] or World Bank and so on. So we can decide this or make it operational once there will remain only one or two countries out of the Euro Group, but in the text it is anticipated that this will be happening, this will happen, and it can be decided by the Euro Zone countries by their own process or monetary institution and a country can describe in advance.

For the U.N., there’s no special provision for that, because at the same, time you have a debate on the new membership of the Security Council and you have demands, including demand by European countries, amongst the demands [inaudible] that well, you have the Germans, you have the Italians— because I think that if Britain, Germany, and France are members, the Italians shouldn’t be excluded, and at the same time you have other demands, Japan, India, and so on. So it’s not a moment in which we can decide on this issue. What is proposed is that there is a coordination of interventions, and the secretary or minister of foreign affairs will be the coordinator for that, but we will keep separate seats for period to come.

HOAGLAND: Let me come to this side of the room. Right here.

QUESTIONER: Mr. President, you’ve devoted— Maurice Tempelsman. You’ve devoted a great deal of your wisdom and energy to bringing about this historical instrument. Thinking ahead one generation, can you share with us your dreams and also your nightmares of what you’ve helped bring about here?

D’ESTAING: Do I have any cauchemars [nightmares]?

QUESTIONER: Yes, sir.

HOAGLAND: Do you have any cauchemars?

D’ESTAING: Well, do you have any cauchemars [inaudible]? [Laughter]

HOAGLAND: Are there any nightmares that you have about what you’ve created? That it could go wrong somehow, that it could—

D’ESTAING: Well, not so many nightmares, you know. No, first I know and you know that time is a very important element in all this, because we are countries with a long past, and to change habits, reactions, takes time. It probably takes more time than we expected. We have a common currency. We have a common parliament. But connection between societies, between people, didn’t go as fast as we expected. And Spain remain— Spaniards remain Spaniards; Italians, Italians; Belgians, Belgians.

What is interesting is that you have two groups in all polls about Europe which are supportive of the system. The most aged, old people, they are quite in favor, because they remember the war. So everyone over 60 is strongly in favor, because he has known or his parents have known the period of war. But this will not create support for the future. But the youngsters, below 24, 25, are strongly in favor of the system. And they are in favor when they [inaudible]. It’s because they want freedom of circulation, of education, of working, of trading, all that. It’s what they want. So they want to create a communication into the system, additional communication.

By my evaluation, it will take one generation and a half before this emerges, really. So I think my dream will come true around 2020. And I hope that medicine will be brilliant enough [laughter] to allow me to see this achievement and contradict the nightmare. There are no nightmares, because we evacuated the [inaudible]. And the most antagonistic peer countries were Germany and France. In the past, you have France and Britain. Now it’s finished. But it was Germany and France for the last two wars. And the most tightly countries now are Germany and France. So there is no more nightmares in the backyard.

What we have— we have two [inaudible] hopes, in fact. And the fascinating point when Americans were building their Constitution is that Washington stated that they were working on a new continent with enormous space, enormous wealth, enormous opportunities, so they were building a society for opportunities, in fact, which means optimism, energy, creation, all that.

And in Europe, it’s relatively limited territory, with accumulation of many things. So people don’t [inaudible] and— what you are opening toward the future. And in fact, what we are [inaudible] is, first, to exist with our culture and to play a game in the world economy as a good player. But it’s not as effective for public opinion as it was at the beginning [inaudible]. But we need a dream; we need.

What is curious, since everyone thinks it will happen, we have less support. If Europe was really in danger, we would have more support. And the Spaniards who did not vote when there was [inaudible] yes, because we knew that they served in [inaudible]. So we must create some aspiration in Europe which is not sufficient at the moment.

HOAGLAND: Let me take those last two answers and try to combine them into a question that talks about the move to centralize, really, in Europe governmental power in the Union, which could led to a single seat sometime far in the future. Is this part of creating an alternative pole? Is going for more centralization in Europe part of a multi-polar strategy that you approve of and that we should have some interest in?

D’ESTAING: These plans we have since 50 years now, is that the European institutions become a sort of natural move too centralized and too bureaucratic, and very difficult to prevent this movement because there’s no strong, determined leadership at the top. All that comes from the states, and the states are strong [inaudible] is to protect themselves. So the German avoid that they interfere with [inaudible], the British with [inaudible]. And for the states there are some negative control and since they are still the diplomats who are handling the issues, it’s hard— in fact, it is a bureaucrat of diplomacy, and the greatest source of autonomous power in the system, which is not really political and not very open to [inaudible].

So it’s this sort of centralization that we want to stop. We want to stop it in two ways. One way is to define clearly the competence at the level of the Union and at the level of the member states; and we do this in the constitution. It’s a sort of Jefferson approach. It’s stronger, perhaps, than even in your text. We say these are the European competence, and the others are the competence of the states and there is [inaudible] protection. We suppress all what happened between [inaudible] which was a slow [inaudible] of power, keeping [inaudible] your country, it’s just I was thinking, for instance, an amusing debate because we have a legislation of hunting on Europe which is now made by the bureaucrats of Brussels. While hunting or shooting in the U.S. is decided by the states. So why in Europe a [inaudible] for Finland will say how to shoot in Portugal is absolutely [inaudible].

So, well, to be very precise, we avoid this. And the constitution is clear, strong, and we give rights to the national parliament to protect the rights.

On the other hand, the main competence should be surprised that the euro— and that’s the case we have one single Central Bank and all that— competition, because it is too complicated to have two levels of competition controls. So it’s really competence of the group.

International trade, as you know, because we cannot have negotiations with 25 members coming in and out, you know, this is impossible. So the competence of the Union, it is normal that they are centralized, and with the other active and efficient. But for the order, we must keep the Union level and the state level.

It’s not the culture and people in Europe, when something is wrong, ask for your [inaudible] everyone, even if it’s better to handle the problem at the national level. So, we must create a psychology of political values in which people will direct their demand to the proper level. If something is wrong in education, it’s a state’s responsibility [inaudible] not the European Union. If the military policy is wrong [inaudible] can do nothing about it. But the same thing happens with the Central Bank and all that. So you see, I think the system is not too centralized, but needs to be more operational for the really government competence.

HOAGLAND: There was a question back here.

QUESTIONER: Monsieur le president, Craig Whitney from the New York Times. I assume from your answer to an earlier question that if, say, in 2008 we have the new constitution in effect, France, let’s just say— take as an example— France decides it wants to intervene in Sudan, Darfur, but Britain doesn’t, does the constitution permit France to undertake military action in a place like that if it wants to by itself? And the second part of the question is: When will Europe actually have a defense capability? There’s been a lot of talk about it over the years, but when will it exist really?

D’ESTAING: In the constitution we do not describe policies, we describe the institution process. It’s not a negative constitution, so it doesn’t oppose many things. It does— it’s create common action, common law. You know the constitution is made by attribution. It’s an English principle.

The competence of the Union and the competence attributed to the Union, that’s Article 1, and the others remain in the hands of the state. So if a state has an interest of responsibility, it’s free to do it by itself, but they do not commit the— [inaudible]. There is an intent of having common action, and the common actions follow a certain process which is first a debate in the European countries, that is the equivalent of the presidency of Europe, in fact, which is to decide if there will be a common action or not. If it’s not, finished. And if they decide to make a common action, there are still two options. They decide to organize it— and this is decided by a majority vote and a country cannot oppose, but they can say we abstain, we abstain without creating problems, a sort of silence of abstention.

And so we have several levels for that. At the beginning, for instance, if we take the [inaudible], it will follow the first line of process, that is the [inaudible] countries’ decision, it is [inaudible] common action, then it will be. For something which is linked to a bilateral culture— for instance Spanish with Latin America, the British with respect of their Commonwealth— the idea is not to interfere with that.

So the objective is, one, a common action seems to be needed, she must be agreed first by the highest level and eventually with a vote, but at the beginning with unanimity, and then the debate is only on how to organize these actions, with no option to oppose, with just an option to abstain. It’s very complicated [inaudible].

HOAGLAND: Right here. Yes?

QUESTIONER: I’m Ted Sorensen of Paul Weiss. Mr. President, one of the most difficult and sensitive questions facing any constitution-drafters, including in Iraq, is the question of religion, what role is it to play in state affairs. Are you satisfied with the answer to that question that you and your colleagues have devised for Europe?

D’ESTAING: We had a long debate on that, very interesting, and I think what we decided is appropriate for us. We had— we are a large grouping because we have 50 percent more population than the U.S. And we are probably more diverse, because we have historical origin, culture. So we are not— in fact, with religion, we have two postures. You have countries in which there is a recognition of religion— for instance, Britain, where the queen is head of the church, or some Latin countries with the close involvement with the Catholic faith. You have other countries who had what we call a laique [public] posture, which is the refusal to have religion interfering with political life. Generally, this is due to the revolution of the 19th century, either the French Revolution or the 1848 revolutions, which were inspired by people of the left which were at the same time fighting the excess— or so they thought— influence of the church.

So the picture is complicated. The first question was: “Do we mention religion in the constitution?” In most of the European constitution, there is no mention of religion. And we decided to do it. So you have in the preamble a mention of the religious values, for the first time in history. It was tried six years ago, when they started doing the chart of fundamental rights, and then many countries wanted to have some reference to the religious values. It was opposed by the French and Swedes, and [inaudible]. We put it in the text, and we say we will be inspired by the cultural, religious, and humanist values of Europe.

The question was, do we mention what these religious values are? And there was a debate about Christianity, a long discussion to [inaudible] met twice, asked me to put Christianity in it. Some member countries— a minority, but different countries— Spain, Slovenia, Poland— were in favor of mentioning Christianity. Some others were against. But in fact we could not mention one single faith. Because of what happened during the last war, it would be impossible not to mention the Jewish faith. And if— modern time as it is— we have a Muslim population, which is not very important but significant, if we put in the constitution a reference to Christianity and Judaism, we must— we’re obliged to put Islam also. So then you have a catalogue of religions, which means little.

So what we did was to put the text into the historical process, saying our values come from culture— that is, Greco-Roman culture; religion— that is the Christian religion, which comes from the 6th century to the 17th century; and then humanist values. And these have been accepted even by the laique of Europe.

And you have an article, the Article 51, which protects churches. The churches cannot be the object of negative legislation [inaudible] which they wanted not for the main Western European countries but also for some new members.

So if you look in it, it’s a real text, it’s the first time in Europe that you have the religious values commonly accepted as an inspiration. [Inaudible] And we describe them as being the Christian values without [inaudible] them, not to offend the other religions.

HOAGLAND: Mr. President, our time is just about up. I wanted perhaps to try to nudge you back toward the Iran question that was asked, by asking you a broader question and hoping you will give your plan for solving this problem of Iran. And the broader question pertains to what American officials say in venues like the Munich Security Conference. I’m sure that President Bush and Secretary of State [Condoleezza] Rice made some reference to it on their tours [of Europe] as well. And it is that the United States and Europe face a common threat today in much the way that they faced a common threat in the Cold War and that common threat is defined by the administration as Islamic extremism. Do you think the people in Europe, governments of Europe, see Islamic extremism as a common threat to the United States and Europe?

D’ESTAING: Well yes, but not in the same way, you know. First, we have Muslims living amongst us. These Muslims were in the past rather moderate and wanted to be integrated. It’s just a recent trend which seems to indicate that fundamentalism is gaining amongst them. We do not perceive it as a threat because we haven’t the same event you had here on September 11th. So the analysis is probably similar, but the recommendations could be different.

First— and they could converge. Beyond fundamentalism, we think there are causes— it doesn’t come out just like this— and the main cause is the state of disorder, humiliation and inefficiency of the Muslim community in a part of the world, I won’t say Middle East. And as long as the countries are led by jihadic people or people imposed by force or [inaudible] regime, and so on, you open the door to extremism [inaudible] elements.

So we don’t— there is a work by a good French [inaudible]. But he said the modern world— he’s a specialist [inaudible] study of violence. And he said what he finds in the modern world is now you try to fight the violence by violence, and it’s an endless cycle. So the difference is probably that in Europe, but now it’s also, I think, [inaudible] in the U.S., we must have at the same time efficient fighting of terrorism, extremism, and all that, but also a clear support for a better standing, a situation of the Arab people and the Arab civilization, which has been, in fact, a positive civilization a few centuries ago. So that is probably the difference.

And we are— for instance, we don’t like collective judgment or denunciation of Islam as such. All that, it must be expressed in a way which is not creating a sort of collective offense, which probably will lead to extremism. Because the work to recruit the young generation behind the fundamentalism, the signs still exists, and people are working hard on that, including some [inaudible]. So it’s not by just policies [inaudible] you can indicate an alternative in which probably there are people one day or another will go. That is different.

And what is happening, it’s very interesting, because now people seem to have found a strategy to destroy coerced tyrannies, and they do it. They did it in Ukraine in a sense. They are doing it in Lebanon in a sense— it’s not finished. They did it in a way in Iraq when they voted in the elections, which was a real American success— that must be said. So there is a trend, and I think we must work and accelerate this trend.

HOAGLAND: And one word on Iran?

D’ESTAING: Yes, well on Iran [laughter] you know, I’m a very popular figure in Iran, which is strange, because it’s due to the fact that we accepted [Ayatollah Ruhollah] Khomeini in France [1978-79] when I was president, and we gave him asylum. And every Iranian knows that. And we did it mainly because we didn’t know him [laughter] and second— no, we didn’t know. And second, because all his papers were in order. He came by plane, he had [laughter]. But I’m pleased to be considered a friend of the Iranian people because of that.

It’s a great country. Here is a country, 60 million people, intelligent people, sophisticated people, and they are accustom to a sort of [inaudible]. They play games between themselves vis-a-vis the others— I know that. They are well-informed. They have this religious regime, which at the same time, is accepted and rejected by people both because they enjoy to have a sort of religious identity for Iran and they don’t like the way it functions. However, there is a strong support by the population for the nuclear armament of the country, probably. It’s good to know because [inaudible].

I think everything must be done to prevent this from happening. I think the approach, the common approach [inaudible] of the Germans, French, and British [inaudible] nothing, because the Germans have good connections hidden so long with Iran. The British have been there and know them well, and the French have some explaining to do.

[Inaudible] So the common approach is to have a sort of growing pressure on Iran, combined with some enticements, something which can please them [inaudible] adequate proportion, because they can’t have bargaining strategy or we’re going to lose and gain that.

First, I think it’s very, very necessary to have a very close cooperation between the U.S. and Europe. We cannot have dissent, it’s impossible. And you cannot have a situation in which the U.S. will be on the verge of doing something which will be criticized or objected by the other. So we need very close cooperation.

We need to have a common goal, which is to prevent Iran to get nuclear armament. We must go as far as possible with the Anglo-Franco-German strategy, which is enticements of Iran to adhere, probably accompanied by a hint that a real decision or manifestation will not be accepted at the end. So it’s a case of diplomatic action. If it’s oversimplified, telling them you won’t do it or [inaudible] they will do it in a way which will make the fight difficult and probably inefficient also, because all their installations are dispersed all over Iran, and they can very well give some indication for one possible target by in fact using some older devices [inaudible].

So I think what is happening by now, in which the U.S. are restraining for announcing some strong action, but at the same time announcing their will to work jointly with Europe in a combination of pressure and enticements, is probably the best way.

HOAGLAND: Mr. President, we’ve exploited you ruthlessly this morning. That’s what [Council President] Richard Haass asked us to do, and I think the members have done that. We appreciate very much your coming, and thank you very much. [Applause]

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