Archive for November, 2009

It was billed as focussing on last week’s European Council and the decisions on the top EU posts. But in the event, Barroso’s Question Time with MEPs, barely touched on it.

Socialist leader Martin Schulz used his one minute to try and get Barroso to condemn fellow conservative PM Boyko Borisov of Bulgaria for disparaging comments he made about the country’s Socialist party.

It was a nice try. But Barroso obviously wasn’t going there. “I’m sure you’ll understand ….” A haruumphing Schulz clearly did not understand. He leapt up to rephrase his question eventually extracting from Barroso: “All democratic parties have their place in democratic countries.”

Several questioners wanted to know about the new commission line-up. Green Daniel Cohn-Bendit asked if it was Barroso’s “view” that member states should not be part of the process of distribution of portfolios. The commission president assured him it was and helpfully referred to the relevant article in the treaty.

A question on the proposed new climate action commissioner, and what exactly this person would do, elicited a long, rambling, and rather non-committal response. Which looks like what the job will turn out to be. Guy Verhofstadt, meanwhile, gesticulated animatedly when Barroso announced that a third of the commissioners will be women. With four of the nine from the Liberal family, the ex Belgian prime minister wasn’t about to let that go unnoticed.

Later, it turned out that a controversial commission document on the budget overhaul, which nobody has admitted writing (rather fitting for a non-paper), has not been read by anybody either. At least not by Barroso.

The Welsh MEP  posing the question did not look terribly convinced.

UK labour MEP Glenis Willmott gave an impassioned defence of Catherine Ashton, who will next week become the EU’s foreign policy chief. “Cathy, you’re not there to stop the traffic, you’re there to create the traffic system,” she said dramatically. Barroso agreed.

EP chief Jerzy Buzek, moderating the session, got an earful when he tried to tell Baroness Ludford that her question on Bosnia was off-topic. “Ok fine,” he replied meekly.

One MEP managed to ask four substantial questions in her minute. Barroso gamely met the challenge by leaping up and galloping out four answers, each one shorter and faster than the last.

Rounding up, Buzek said: “We achieved much more than last month.” Calling it a very important signal for “our citizens,” he added: “So we will see you next month on Question Hour.” It sounded vaguely threatening. I rather like BQT.

European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso emerges as a clear winner from all this.

He had been nervous about being elbowed off the EU stage by a strong European  Council president and undermined in his own Commission by an authoritative foreign policy chief.

Now he has to fear neither incidence. Belgian leader Herman Van Rompuy is discreet and modest. Just what member states, wary of being outshone, wanted. He will take these qualities to the presidency job as well as “subordinating” his own opinions to those of the council.  So the internal fixer and not the traffic stopper.

Catherine Ashton, who has done well as a trade commissioner, has no foreign policy experience and has never held elected office. Her candidacy emerged largely as a result of a deal to have a socialist take the foreign policy post and preferably a woman and a Briton. The huge new job, as well as her relative inexperience, will mean she will need a lengthy adjustment period to find her feet. This plays into Barroso’s hands – although his aides stress that the commission president “has always said this is an extremely capable lady.”

Incidentally, they also say that Barroso will be happy to leave consensus-making among member states to Van Rompuy as this will “liberate” him to do other, as yet unspecified, “tasks.”

Van Rompuy will start on 1 January in order to have a longer handover time in Belgium where he has held together the fractious Walloons and Flemings since last year.

Ashton is to take up her duties as high representative and become vice president of the commission on 1 December. A legal tangle could ensue if the parliament, which holds hearings on all commission members, were to actually try and move against her. “On that there is no precise legal answer because the High Representative side is not in the gift of the parliament,” noted an official.

Thursday’s agreement throws open a few other questions – such as what to do with Benita Ferrero-Waldner, currently the external relations commissioner. She will be “given another substantial assignment” said the official. A solution also has to be found for the trade portfolio, which Ashton will soon vacate.

Meanwhile, Barroso is expected to have assigned the commissioner portfolios by the beginning of December. Only four countries have not yet named their next commissioners – the Netherlands, Denmark, Greece and Malta.

The commission president’s most immediate hurdle is to see that his commissioners are thoroughly prepared for MEPs, who as far as I can make out, are desperate to shed some political blood.

Is this it? Are these the two people to whom the top EU jobs are to go to? This is the rumour flying around the summit.

The foreign policy job goes to the UK trade commissioner Catherine Ashton – a person with no foreign policy experience and who has never held a senior government post.

The European Council president should go to Belgian leader Herman Van Rompuy, a person with no international reputation.

Two unknowns. For both posts. Surely not?

These are ridiculous times. On the one hand you have politicians saying – with a perfectly straight face – that the new posts in the Lisbon Treaty will give the EU a more coherent presence on the world stage. And on the other hand, you have the nomination process for these posts – a lesson in incoherency and obfuscation.

At this stage, the eve of a summit where this is all supposed to be agreed, it is anybody’s guess who will be nominated the EU’s first president of the European Council and who will become its top diplomat.

Member states are engaged in an unedifying search for candidates who tick the right boxes. The important boxes are nationality and political family. An apparently lesser box – a nice-if-we-can-get-it-box –  is gender-balance.

And after all that, there is not much room left for considerations of competency.

And as for what member states want the president to do and project about Europe, that remains the great unknown. Should it be an internal fixer or someone of global stature? I am not sure at what stage the actual job description will enter the negotiations on Thursday.  How the president and foreign policy chief should rub along together is also unclear.

I was struck by something an EU diplomat said to me the other day. We were talking about the search for the EU president, a post that may be held for up to five years. “Look,” he said, “Jacques Delors came from nowhere and turned out to be a really strong [European Commission] president, who got things done.”

That just about sums the whole sorry process up. The horse-trading might, as a fortuitous spin-off, see the union land on its feet in terms of candidates.

The two people chosen may be able to work out among themselves how to make a go of their respective jobs without falling out; work out how to get along with big member states and a commission president who also like foreign policy; and give the EU the credibility it craves on the world stage.

But then again they may not. Who knows? And who really cares? Apparently not the hagglers sitting around the dinner table tomorrow night.

Now there’s an idea. The candidates for the new top EU posts should be interviewed. The proposal is apparently so outre that it has been carefully encased within a special little (Polish) ‘non-paper’ – an unofficial document in which member states can air eccentric thoughts.

Distributed to other capitals on Monday, the Poles are suggesting that both the proposed new President of the European Council and the foreign minister should “present their vision of how their tasks would be conducted.”

Well now. It would be a step towards transparency (in that someone would finally define the presidency job) and it seems a perfectly sensible idea on (non) paper. But how would it work in practice?

Any type of interview situation would bring up great opportunities for EU diplomats to give snide briefings to eager journalists.

“Well, we thought he was ok, but then he broke into Haiku at an inappropriate moment.” “We’re not sure giving the job to a Harry Potter look-alike is a good message for Europe to be sending to the world.” “Nobody clapped.” “He shuffled his feet nervously while speaking.” “He’s got something of the (past) Communist about him.” “Sarkozy was texting during the presentation” and so on.

Thinking on it, I could suggest one defining criterion or task at a special EU summit for the posts.

The person who wants to be president should sit in the room and listen carefully to every single EU leader as they each speak for three minutes on an entirely random issue that affects a handful of states but on which each minister feels compelled to say a petit mot. The candidate will be judged on their ability not to let their eyes glaze over. The would-be president should then leave the room and have an earnest think about whether they can face doing this every couple of months for the next 2.5 and possibly five years. If they re-enter the room, they get the job.

The foreign minister, on the other hand, should bring up a foreign policy problem of interest to the European Union as a whole. Let’s say Russia. The person should then work out a common position on a ‘Russia issue’ with the EU leaders around the table. If, after the subsequent national briefings, it emerges that the position has been roughly held to in at least half of the member states, the person can be considered a plausible candidate for the post.

Alas when it’s finally over I shall miss my daily search to see what names have emerged mysteriously overnight as possible contenders for the posts.

Forget France and Germany. The Socialists are the real name spinners here. Like kids who (apparently) can’t have the toy they wanted, they’re now desperately looking for another.

Thankfully we’re almost there. After weeks of gossip, tinged with well-informed speculation, a smattering of wishful thinking, still more self-promotion, and a side-dish of absurdity, it’s decision time.

EU leaders, gathered in the German capital to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, are set to (informally) indicate who should be the first ever president of the European Council and EU foreign minister. This should soon then be confirmed in a formal EU summit.

By several accounts, it’s to be a Belgo-British affair. Herman van Rompuy, the clever, Haiku-writing, holder-together of fractious little Belgium (itself a mildly heroic achievement) may become president. British foreign minister David Miliband may be chosen as the Union’s chief diplomat.

It’s not done and dusted of course. Miliband reportedly may want to stay on the domestic scene while the Dutch papers insist prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende is not out of the running for the presidency job. And Tony Blair, although his presidency ship is generally seen as on the rocks, is still trying his luck.

There has been much discussion on what the appointee to the presidency job will say about the EU. Should it be someone who is a global traffic-stopper (Blair) or rather an internal fixer (Van Rompuy)? The main idea being that the former could open doors all over the world, the latter could not. The former would be affirmation that Europe wants to play a substantial role on the world stage, the latter would not.

I think that bipolarity may be missing the point. After all you can stop traffic (to stick with the theme) but have no real power. All the glitz but none of the substance. Or put another way: Appointing a high profile person to the job does not suddenly mean the EU is going to have a common point of view on the topic of the day.

To my mind, what Europe needs at this time is a strong but discreet character in the post.

This person needs to be able to shape a consensus among leaders, and persuade them that it is not in Europe’s interests to break that consensus when the president takes it as Europe’s position to an external summit or meeting. It will require, tact, diplomacy and an ability to bang heads together in equal measure. It needs someone who either has or can gain the ear and trust of all member states, particularly the large ones. This person should give internal coherence to the EU and a sense of internal political drive – something that is just about achievable with a 2.5 year tenure.

After all, a union that is not functioning properly internally is not going to be able to get much right externally either, or be taken seriously externally.

The powers that be in Washington or Bejing will soon be able to work whether Europe’s president is really someone with clout, who can bring member states’ views to the table. And that will be despite whether the person is ostensibly a global political star or a mere organiser.

In other words, appointing a capable internal operator does not automatically mean Europe has forced its own exit from the world stage.