THE WORRYING DECLINE OF FRANCE'S VOICE IN EUROPE

In the past six months, questions have arisen about what France is offering in terms of fresh ideas, and how it is dealing with the rest of Europe. To be certain, France has not opted into the market of ideas for a more political Europe and how it could be organized. There's a shrinking presence, a progressive disappearance of France on most issues that concern the economic agenda. Some European diplomats from a range of member states say that France's voice is nowhere to be heard. Even the French Minister himself acknowledges that the country needs to rediscover the leadership it has lost.

There is broad agreement that one root of the problem lies in France's inability so far to follow Germany's lead in reforming its economy. Indeed, a lack of economic competitiveness has undermined France's ability to project influence in Brussels. On Europe's most pressing economic issues, how it sees off the debt crisis and puts itself on a footing to compete with the United States and Asia- the weakness of France's economy and public finances means its voice is muffled.

According to Jean Pisany-Ferry, director of Bruegel, a Brussels-based think tank, 'France has found it hard to define itself, either to pretend that there is a Franco-German agreement, or that it can a driving force behind a Franco-German agreement.'

In order to be credible in Europe again, France needs to improve its competitiveness, reduce public spending, reform unemployment benefits, merge retirement schemes into a fair and transparent regime, simplify its labour laws and revamp its fiscal code. In addition France won't be able to impose its views or only to consider as truly European those positions that conform to a French vision, however much in the EU minority it may be.

Today, one of Europe's main motors is not functioning as it should. France is tied up with internal problems and is not the strong interlocutor it really should be.

Just how the European Union will evolve if French influence is durably muted and Germany is pushed against its will into a lone leadership role is hard to predict.