Archive for June, 2009

Pat Cox is back in action. And reportedly aiming (again) to be Ireland’s next EU commissioner. The former journalist, turned MEP, turned president of the European Parliament, turned lobbyist-at-large has tied his colours to the Lisbon Treaty’s success in Ireland.

He is heading the recently-launched group ‘Ireland for Europe’ – including musicians, athletes and authors – which is campaigning for a yes vote in the Lisbon Treaty referendum.

By his own reckoning he is well known in Ireland but not associated with the unpopular government, although he has good relations with it.

A yes vote begets a commissioner post?

For the Fianna Fail government, badly wounded in the recent local elections, this set-up would save it from having to choose someone from within its own ranks, a not particularly glorious line-up which would prompt a (probably unwinnable) byelection to boot.

In addition, while not being FF himself, Pat Cox is not from the opposition Fine Gael. He first ran to be an MEP on a Progressive Democrat ticket (a small economically liberal party set up in the 1980s) before winning a seat as an Independent. He sat in the Liberal group in the European Parliament, which has just admitted Fianna Fail to its ranks. He has the added advantage of having operated outside Irish politics for long enough to now be considered to be above the domestic fray.

He is an able politician, knows his way well around Europe and is far better suited to the life of being a commissioner than Charlie McCreevy, who pined for scrappy local Irish politics from day one. Cox is also a gifted communicator, although he is rather long-winded and has a tendency to elevate his rhetoric to (not entirely necessary) flowery planes.

Still this might come in handy during the Lisbon referendum campaign mark II. He could simply round up any hesitant voters and talk them into submission.

If there is one thing this Barroso saga has taught us, it is that a politician needs the hide of a rhinoceros to openly run as commission president, particularly if they hope to get in for a second term.

The angry (and woefully belated, I might add) anti-Barroso screeching from the European Parliament goes with the territory. As does a certain amount of trashing in newspapers (remember the FT’s “a vain man who lacks in political courage” condemnation. Ouch!)

But in this particular set up you have also have EU leaders thrown into the equation. So this evening Barroso will attend the same summit and sit at the same dinner table as the politicians who discuss his next mandate.

And this after weeks of being ritually humiliated as “senior ranking diplomats” imply that member states will endorse Barroso simply for want of an alternative / better candidate. French president Nicolas Sarkozy has played with him, declaring his political affection last year and then withdrawing it before offering “conditional support” along side Germany’s Angela Merkel last week.

Even the Czech presidency – admittedly not the standard bearers on the diplomatic front – is in on the game, cheekily putting a Barroso-for-president poll on the official presidency website.

And this evening he will also be put in the ignominious position of having to leave the room when it comes to Point Jose on the agenda.

So while he twiddles his thumbs as he waits for a decision on his endorsement – and it will surely be a yes – he might like to reflect on how there must be a better way of doing this.

At each EU summit a certain amount of  informal meetings between various leaders take place. They vary from the significant (like when Schroeder and Chirac in 2002 had a little tête-à-tête in which they wrapped up EU farm policy spending until 2013) to, I assume, ones with less widespread implications for the EU (the ohh-where-did-you-get-that-nice-chocolate-biscuit variety).

So here are a few  conversations that I could imagine taking place between leaders at various points during the European  Council on Thursday and Friday.

Barroso to Reinfeldt:
In your capacity as panicked incoming presidency country, please keep up the pressure for me to be appointed as commission president until 2014 during this summit. I’m with you on this whole free market stuff.  I do not think ‘Industrial policy’ is a policy.  The French commissioner will be in charge of counting beans.  Did I already mention – the Swedish commissioner will have the biggest and brightest portfolio ever.

Barroso to Sarkozy

Of course I think the French commissioner should be in charge of industrial policy.

Barroso to Merkel

I promise I’ll wait until September before allocating portfolios to commissioners. And Germany will get the best portfolio ever.

Barroso to Cowen

Naturally the Lisbon vote will not affect what portfolio your commissioner will get.

Barroso to Reinfeldt (later)

Just so you know, the Irish commissioner will be in charge of bin bags.

Barroso to Boc

Well actually I don’t agree. Multilingualism is  extremely important.  But yes ok.  I’ll see what I can do for you this time round.

Various attendees to Brown
Please, please please please hang on to your job. We don’t much like you – you snuck into sign the Lisbon treaty late and on your own. You lectured us when you were finance minister – but at least you are (kind of) pro-EU. You may collapse, resign or simply give up after the Irish have voted yes. The thought of David Cameron is giving us a collective heart attack. We want to stop discussing institutional reform of the EU in our lifetime.

Various attendees to Cowen
WHAT IS GOING ON? Are you campaigning or what? You know how everybody says they like the Irish. Well we don’t anymore. And we’ll like you a still whole a lot less if your people force us to discuss how to reduce the number of commissioners, as per the Nice Treaty.

Brown to Cowen

I am no more going to re-open debate on Lisbon in my parliament than fly over the moon. So stop that talk of protocols attached to future treaties.

Reinfeldt to Sarkozy
Say, I read somewhere you want to change how the EU runs on the strength of your party’s victory in EU elections. As about-to-be EU presidency country – and actually in charge of the EU – I’d be curious to know exactly what you meant.

Fischer to Tusk
Do you have any tips on getting presidents to sign documents? Mine is a bit unrulier than yours, I think.

Various attendees to  Rasmussen

Is everyone in your country called Rasmussen? Are you any relation to Anders Fogh or Poul Nyrup?

Various attendees to Juncker
What was that will-i-won’t-I stay on as eurogroup chief lark all about?

Juncker to Merkel
Sorry for ramping up all that WWII chat recently, but I was electioneering. You know how it is. Or you will at least, come September. I won’t take offence if you electioneer with the Grand Duchy. So am I back in Germany’s good books, I’m kind of getting bored of being eurogroup chief. Can we bring me being the first EU president back into serious discourse?

Poettering [EP president] to various

Sorry, but could you do me the courtesy of at least pretending to listen to what I am saying.

Any others… post below!

It is early days yet but word is that the British Conservatives will take over some of the remnants of the rightist UEN group in the European Parliament. Timothy Kirhope (one of the 25 Tory MEPs) is to head the group while the Polish Law and Justice Party (15 MEPs) will hold the general secretariat.

This would potentially give them 2 Lithuanians and 3 Latvians plus the nine Czechs of the ODS party. According to one source, the Conservatives do not want to have the xenophobic Lega Nord or the equally anti-immigrant Danish People’s Party on board. They are also looking to the “non-secessionist” parts of the eurosceptic Independence/Democracy group.

This could for example include the Dutch ChristenUnie-SGP (2 MEPs) party as well as the Greek Laos (2 MEPs). That range would give them the minimum 25 MEPs from at least seven different countries needed to form a group.

Keeping out the Danish People’s Party and the Lega Nord would allow the group, probably to be called the European Conservatives, to maintain a respectable veneer – i.e a main-stream anti-federalist party. Although the UK press is waking up to the homophobic, catholic and nationalist Law and Justice Party and has started giving the Tories a hard time about the alliance.

But the potential ‘European Conservatives’ group is interesting for the EPP too.  As the new group would be relatively respectable (they are eurosceptic, which is against the pro-federalist EPP  line  but they successfully managed to live with that for the last few years when the Tories were actually aligned to the group) and possibly the fourth biggest group in the parliament (58 MEPs using the groups I have mentioned) the EPP can easily form an alliance with it.

The European Conservatives and the EPP alone would not mean a right-wing majority in the parliament. This is where the – we’re-sitting-on-the-fence – Liberals could come in.

All three would give the right a clear majority in the Parliament. This would be handy for electing the next commission president, for example. And what would make the liberals get off the fence? Finally putting Graham Watson out of his misery and promising him the EP presidency in the second half of the five year term. He has been openly canvassing for the job for several months but his parliamentary colleagues have left him swinging in the wind.

The European People’s Party is saying that EU citizens have come out in favour of European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday morning, a triumphant Joseph Daul, leader of the EPP faction, said “the people of Europe approved the actions of the EPP and the actions of Jose Manuel Barroso.”

Hmm. I think that may be rather a leap of faith. I cannot see that many of the voters went to ballot box and thought about what Barroso did over the last five years before making their little tick in the box.

It was 27 different elections, based on national issues and the effect the vote has in Europe was not a big consideration.

But no matter, I suspect. The bulk of the votes are in the EPP’s corner and they will be used for Barroso.

The party is already urging the European Council, meeting next week, to nominate the Portuguese politician for a second mandate.

Now it is up to Barroso to conduct an eleventh hour wooing of EU leaders – he is meeting the German chancellor on Tuesday – to make sure his nomination is in the bag.

At an EPP Congress in Warsaw last month, he was formally put forward as the centre-right’s candidate and he has also received some support from centre-left governments (Spain, Portugal and Britain).

However, France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, who seems to take some delight in toying with Barroso, may try and insist that EU leaders next week only give him political support. This is supposedly so Paris can use the intervening time until the end of October, when the commission’s mandate officially expires, to keep Barroso pliant when it comes to the exact job description of the next French commissioner.

Assuming Barroso is nominated by EU leaders, the parliament will then have its say on 15 July. The centre-right EPP and the liberals, whose leader Graham Watson says are “logical” allies, are not enough to secure a majority backing so some frantic negotiating will mark the next weeks as MEPs decide where to put their allegiances and what is ultimately in it for them.

As for Barroso himself… well he shall be waiting.  His carefully-worded press release sent out on Sunday evening was a study in avoidance of the topic of the moment.  It merely thanked voters for expressing their views on the European Union’s political future.

The European Parliament is set for its lowest turnout ever this year. An official turnout estimate reckons just 43.39 of the possible 375 million voters bothered to cast their ballot.

This makes it the seventh consecutive time turnout has dropped since direct election to the EU assembly began in 1979.

And this despite the concerted effort to make voters care.

There was a glossy campaign, some quite amusing youtube spots on the importance of voting, a slightly toe-curling get-the-youth-to-the-booths effort with MTV, facebook, twittering and more besides.

But still, the main thing that is missing is a dose of good old politics. Parliament needs to be noisier, brasher and more combative. Within its own walls of course. A few terrific debates – during the making of legislation and not after it has already been made – would help.

Well there will be plenty of hand-wringing to come. Particularly as the parliament is set to gain more power if the Lisbon Treaty comes into place.  I reckon there will be more calls for the commission president to be directly elected and as well as some deputies elected on a pan-European ticket.

Declan Ganley may win a seat in the North West constituency in Ireland. He says he is “quietly confident” of it and exit polls suggest the leader of the anti-treaty Libertas could indeed do it.

So the fledgling movement, a no-questions-asked umbrella for all sorts of malcontents, will live another day. If Ganley does not make it to Brussels, I cannot see how Libertas will survive. The Irish entrepreneur has cobbled it together on the back of Ireland’s No to the Lisbon Treaty last June but it has no manifesto to speak of and the glue that keeps it together is being against the treaty.

Ganley’s projected win also means he will lead the campaign against the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland’s second referendum, set for October. He has previously indicated he would take a back seat if he did not win a mandate.

So Ireland’s government is set for another tough fight over the treaty. Is it better prepared for the tussle this time round, I wonder? So far, it has been pretty distracted by the economic woes facing the country to put any time and energy into this – as far as the electorate goes – rather thankless task.

Still, with the beating that the governing Fianna Fail party appears to be taking the polls – counting is still underway – it may not be Brian Cowen’s problem for much longer.

My, this whole waiting for Sunday lark is a bore, isn’t it? I want to know the EU election results on the day they happen.

(Yes I know the reasons for not doing just that. And again I am amused by the Dutch / European Commission standoff over The Hague’s decision to publish preliminary results straight away. The Dutch appear to offer the perfect mixture of nose-thumbing (a level teaspoon thereof) topped by a sprinkling of self-righteousness on this issue. The European Commission is flapping and “looking into it”. Didn’t we all have exactly the same discussion last time round?)

Anyway. Back to this waiting business. Opinion poll upon opinion poll. Prediction after prediction. This election has been opined/surveyed/polled into a separate stratosphere. But as we are in a somewhat of an information hole until 10pm on Sunday, I shall add a tuppence worth courtesy of search engine Google.

Its office in Brussels  compiled some information on the political parties in five major EU countries – the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Poland – over the past month leading up to the European elections.

The result shows that internet searches for Britain’s UKIP – wanting to leave the EU – and the Greens surged in May after the MPs expenses scandal went public, details of which have left the electorate foaming at the mouth. Overall, behind UKIP, the next most searched was the Conservatives, followed by Labour and then the Greens. Just before expenses scandal, Labour was the most searched party.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s ruling UMP party saw by far the most searches while entries for the socialists (in second place) have stagnated over the last month.  In the past two weeks, however, searches for the far left Front de Gauche rose above searches for the Socialists. Meanwhile the far-right  National Front comes in fourth over the previous month.

The social democrats was the most searched German party, followed by the Greens and then Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right CDU, then the Liberals and the far-left Die Linke.

Italy’s centre-left  PD has over the last month consistently seen more searches than Silvio Berlusconi’s PDL party with the xenophobic Lega Nord coming in third, while Poland’s governing Civic Platform has received the most interest followed by PiS (Tory leader David Cameron’s potential political bedfellows in the new EP). Libertas, the upstart trans-EU anti-Lisbon party, comes in as the fourth most searched after the centre-left SLD.

Of course caveats abound. These are just the results of a search engine. A search does not equal a vote. BNP is a bank as well as a racist far-right party in Britain. Labour, conservative, green are also words in themselves… etc etc

But perhaps there is (a little) something to it. And the proper results are still a whole two days away after all…