And then they wonder why the people, the voters, are becoming more disillusioned each day, each European election.

a poor day for europe.

at least the US, Russia and China will have two less phone numbers to be concerned with. They will certainly not be calling either the President of the Council or the Foreign Minister.

This is, in fact, a very good night for the EU.

The inventors of these two posts, the five largest Member States, have had their comeuppance not because other Member States did not agree but because they could not agree among themselves as to what the two appointees were supposed to do: outshine them in the European Council? Present a non-existent “foreign policy” for the EU?

Monnet said that nothing was possible without people and nothing enduring without institutions. The idea that one or the other can play the sole role is profoundly mistaken. We do not need “personalities” in international politics. There are enough of them already in football.

The relative inexperience of both candidates is worrying.

I cannot believe they elected someone who only today made such comments about Turkey never joining our christian block. Voting yes to Lisbon was a huge mistake.

UK labour should join up with the liberal block in the EU parliment to make sure that a viable alternative to these Christian democrat muppets exist.

@me: looks like I scanned the article too quickly. he said it some time ago. I still don’t like him.

@thomas: if you want to have news: read the news section. If you want to read an opinion and debate: go to the blog section. if you want to see the EU better communicated: go to Ms Wallstrom – for now.

And with the one year experience in heading DG Trade, after Mandelson left for the UK, you don’t suggest she is an experienced foreign policy expert?

In my humble opinion the laughing third is Commission President Barroso. No wonder he had the biggest smile ever on his face tonight……….

@reuben

So what is Barroso is the laughing third? Of all the “leaders” in the EU – apart from the national leaders – he is the most democratically elected (EP assent procedure). He is the one who should have the whole of the EU in mind when making decisions and not just stubborn national values, he is part of the supranational EU Commission, and not of the “lowest common denominator haggling tactics of the Council”. So why should he not be the laughing third? A powerful Council President, means a power Council, means intergovernmentalism, means unanimity in decision making, means lowest common denominator, means horse trading, package dealing, closed-door dealings! Is that what you want? I much rather have a powerful – because experienced – Commission President who at least won’t let the EU fall apart. We have seen so many national leaders int he last years who threaten to veto so much. Think of slovenia-crotia, think of greece-macedonia, think of cyprus-turkey, think of Poland and climate financing, think of Vaclav Klaus and Lisbon ratification. Now do you really want to make the aggregation of selfish national leaders (meaning the european council) more powerful by giving it a powerful president?

@Kazimierz: that is very inappropriate to compate van Rompuy with Hitler and Lenin. think of ex-german minister Guttenberg… he was inexperienced but is the most popular minister in Germany.

@MiukeH: I guess for people like you everything that has to do with the EU is quasi-ngo like and corrupt. If you know Mrs. Ashton so well, I figure you are from the UK. I also remember that there was a certain scandal around Gordon Brown and he is still in office. So why don’t you first protest against him and get him out of office and then deal with people like Ashton who still deserve a chance, and who after all has managed to keep protectionism out of the EU during the financial crisis and who managed to get the Banana Trade War that is going on since almost 20 years, sorted out.

@Michael: He said the things about Turkey when he was in opposition. Now see: David Cameron promised a referendum on Lisbon. Even still in opposition he changed his mind. Van Rompuy has no powers over the decision on Turkey. Enlargement negotiations themselves are done by the Commission, the decision to have negotiations has been taken in 2005, decision to stop it has to be taken unanimously by the heads of state or government, and van rompuy has no voting right there. And decisions about opening or closing single enlargement chapters can be vetoed. Yes, it is bad sign for Turkey. But when he was in opposition he is entiteled to an opinion, and most likely it was the opinion of his party. Now that he is council president, he will not be able to say such things, but what he says has to reflect the broad guidelines given by the 27 national leaders. And that guideline is since 2005: we lead accession negotiations with Turkey. The process is only stalled by Cyprus vetoing opening new accession chapters. But the guideline has not changed.

Ashton was also leader of the house of lords: The Office of the Leader of the House of Lords is a ministerial department.

She served as under secretary in the education and justice ministry in the UK. myself working in a german ministry, I know that the under secretaries do most of the work, and the minister is just a better spokesperson for the ministry:)

She also got the Stonewall Award, meaning she has a positive attitude towards LGBT people. I like that, someone who actually cares about minorities.

As EU commissioner for trade, she sealed the free trade agreement with South Korea in a time where bilateral free trade agreements become more and more important.

She is a woman. That is nice after all.

She has many people to advise her on foreign policy.

For one year she sat at the weekly meeting of the Commissioner of the EU. One year is quite a lot of time to pick up a few things about foreign policy.

Westerwelle, – Germany’s new foreign minister – has no experience in foreign affairs either (he is an economist and barely interested himself in foreign affairs so far – people complain, but they also complained about Genscher (who today is celebrated as an ex-foreign minister who has very very well performed in his job) who also had no experience in foreign affairs before taking the job.

She is british, speaks english… that always comes in handy when dealing with the US, India, etc.

So enough from my side about this woman. I am not her spokesman. But I wish people would refrain from running around and screaming “bad EU” after each and every decision that is taken there.

@ Thomas – I like your comments, we need more people like you

@ Kazimierz: Sorry, but me being German, I will not comment on Hitler being good in any way. I will not even say that he was cute as a baby. It is just too big a thing in Germany.

@Damien: I give you that: The selection is not democratic (though Ashton still has to be confirmed en bloc by the EP). It is a stich up. But why whine about it now? It is certainly not her fault that the selection process works that way. I guess you would have liked an EU wide campaign of a number of persons who run for Council President and then big EU wide elections, just like in America? Well, sorry, but that post is just not worth having democratic elections. No one will spend a ton of money on a EU wide election campaign for such a powerless job. Imagine, someone being elected by 500 million people in the EU and then all he gets to do is chair 4 meetings and shake hands with Putin and Obama. That is the reality of the system. The Commission President, HE/SHE should be elected indeed, because this post holds a certain power. By the way: Angela Merkel was also not elected. Her PARTY was elected in Germany. And the people from her party and the coalition party then chose her. But we got a “list-system” so you vote on the party as a block, you cannot single out individuals. So is that more democratic than the EU system? Having no control over the parliamentarians you vote in, because if you like the program you have to give them all a ticket? Having no choice about the chancellor, because he/she is elected indirectly? And then they name the ministers. NO INFLUENCE AT ALL.
I think we cannot elect everyone directly. Who has the greater legitimacy then? A directly elected Council President, or a directly elected French president? there would be constant battles, between President and EP, just like in the US, because both institutions claim that they were directly elected.

So to sum up: the council president is a lame duck. he is not a real president like Sarkozy or Obama. We all knew that the day the EU constitution was published and the day the lisbon treaty was published. We also knew since 8 years that he will not be directly elected, one of the reasons being that you do not elect secretaries. And i am glad that he has no real powers, because he belongs to the wrong institution. He chairs what should be the EU’s second chamber. The Council – with its unanimity rule – should not be the place where a future European government is growing from. It should be the commission, precisely because it represents the European spirit and not the nationalist egoism.

This is it! Bwhahahahahahaha… fantastic. The two nobodiest nobodies they could find. That’s consensus for ya, EU-philes. I hate to say I told you so, be careful what you wish for you might get it!

You thought by ramming the undemocratic Lisbon thing through you’d have won. Message: the fight to restore democracy and abolish EU-rule-by-decree has only just begun.

@Thomas: thank you for your insightful posts, it helps me to reflect more and to go beyond my first reaction, which I must confess, was indeed one of: “Oh France and Germany have made sure they elected two nobodies in order to continue to hold the most power in Europe”.

@Damien: I totally agree that this horse-trading is totally undemocratic back room politics, which alienates people from the EU.

I hope that both these leaders and the new Commission will give more attention to social issues, for example social chapters in trade agreements, or carrying out impact assessments before signing EPA or other trade&development agreements. However, that is probably vain hope, I admit.

@ Steve Peers.

Hear, hear!

On your last point, this is widely un-remarked issue cf. recent Commons Treasury Committee report on financial supervision.

@ #26 by Francis Deutsch

Quite right, the Bulgaria / Romania enlargement was a mistake. But equally Greece shouldn’t have been admitted into the block since its level of freedom, security and justice is at least as bad as Bulgaria’s and Romania’s. Furthermore, following your reasoning, Italy should now be expelled from the EU for scaling back into a semi-free country.

Yeah right…

@ Thomas

Much as I agree that Honor hasn’t been herself lately, she has written a popular post, one must admit. Just look at the number of comments. As to your comments, spot on mate, keep it up!

A further note on statehood: The EU is busy building embassies all over the world – as above not declaring them embassies outright. Who, except for states, maintain embassies?

Anonymous, I agree there’s a problem of bullying, which we’ve seen in the Balkans and many other places.

What I don’t agree with is the proposed solution. Introducing another bully into the game, damaging what should be a close and constructive friendship with our American friends, is no solution. Nor is introducing another inflationary currency, the euro.

A better solution would be to pursuade the Americans to stop their money-printing, for example by abolishing the Federal Reserve system. If they’re not able to purchase goods and loyalty for home-printed dollars, the bullying will cease.

@ Hendrik R. Clausen: OMG (oh my god). this is going to be fun. Let’s see: The Montevideo Convention that you quote (defined territory, population and so on), is not at all fulfilled. Let me tell you – as a lawyer, as a political scientist, and someone who next to all that studied European Affairs in the Netherlands (so not at my home country) for three years: The EU is not a state. The EU has no “competence competence”, meaning the European Institutions cannot give themselves, or revoke competences in policy and legislative fields”. The EU has a constition, though: All the primary law treaties that are in place so far. The Consition of the EU would simply have been a means to make that fact more transparent. But it lacks a well-defined territory: Where does the EU end, when does enlargement stop? Not clear at all! It lacks a population, in that the population does to a large part not identify with the EU, but with the states. The UN has a legislative, in some way. Security Council resolutions are binding on all UN member states under Chapter VII. Is it a state? Certainly not. Do I want it to become a state? Certainly not. Why? Because statehood is about war (read about the tilly-thesis). Statehood, and nationalism has always brought about war, tension and conflict. This is not what the EU is about. The EU is there to make peace on the continent, not to shine in the world. It is there to lead by example, not to force its will on others. Despite having achieved to become the biggest trading bloc in the world and bla bla. The biggest achievement of the EU is peace. simple and boring and not much cherished peace. Peace between France and GErmany, between Germany and England, between Germany and Poland, but also Peace between France and England, between Greece and Turkey and internal peace for ex-dictatorial Greece, ex dictatorial Spain, ex dictatorial Portugal. If the EU in 50 years had not created one single penny, one single job, one single good policy; IT WOULD STILL HAVE BEEN WORTHWILE; BECAUSE IT CREATED PEACE!!!!! Once you get that into your head. the cost of non-peace, you will cherish the EU, whatever its statelike, or quasi-state or sui-generis state like features.
Who in the world maintain embassies? Well the UN does. they are called offices, and delegations! They do one thing: represent the views of the organization. OECD delegations, UN officies, World Bank offices all over the world. They represent within their powers. So do the current Commission Delegations. Trade is an exclusive competency of the EU, so there is a real need to have someone in India who talks with the government about trade and who informs Brussels about developments in India.

Furthermore, the euro is not inflationary… it is deflating during the economic crisis, and before that it kept the inflation-rate even blow the one of Germanys D-Mark!!!!!! And that means something, believe me!

@Anonymous: the EU is not a super-state. It cannot act as a state, and only since the Lisbon Treaty it can join international organisations like the Council of Europe, the UN, and so on. (the EC had already legal personality before that so it could join the WTO). So joining the European Convention on Human Rights in the form of the Council of Europe, is actually already a major milestone that is achieved by the Lisbon Treaty!
The EU is a pooling of sovereingty to speak with more power on certain issues. So far the EU has used that power on climate change, which we all agree is very “nice” to do and on trade, which some opponents to free trade, will say is not so “nice”. I think countries always like to have the EU protecting them, when they are in crisis. The Netherlands, which are threatened by climate change (water rising, dams breaking), cannot push the US or China to sign up to a global deal. The EU has at least a better chance. Poland alone cannot tell Russia to open its market for meat, and to not disrupt gas transit through Ukraine. The EU can. And so on.
So i guess it is not about bullying (unless you call telling Turkey to abandon death penalty and protect minority rights, bullying^^). but about standing together.

@Anonymous: I spoke during my studies to someone who lost his younger brother and his father in Srebrenica (balkans, Bosnia). He survived because he was part of a UN delegation as a translator, his little brother was taken by the Serbs, so was his father and they both were put into fucking busses, taken to a field and shot there, along with 8000 other men, some brutally castrated before put to death, some hanged, some raped, some tortured, some amputated and so on, all you can imagine. Now you want to tell me that the EU was bullying Serbia by marching in there and bombing the shits out of Karadzic and Mladic? And you want to tell me the Dutch are bullying Serbia, by vetoing stronger ties between the EU and Serbia as long as they do not cooperate fully with the Criminal Tribunal. Man, I get really angry!

@ Kalburov: Many foreign ministers in nation-states do not have experience. Think of Mr. Westerwelle in Germany, no experience, but he seems to do a good job so far. Think of Mr. Joschka Fischer from Germany, he did a great job. You got so many advisors and you basically just need to say what your advisors tell you- and your good. So give her some slack. If they had elected a powerful foreign minister, people would have been all over the place screaming “aaah super state, and european army, and military block, and bullying and militarization” and god knows… So cut her some slack. But just for your information: I would have preferred an outstanding human rights supporter like Mary Robinson.

And one more thing; Yes this post of Mrs. Mahony has attracted a lot of comments. Mostly because I am taking the liberty to present a different view on things. And I generally like the comments, because they are cordial and we are moving away from bitchy comments like:
“omg, it is all shit, I do not know why and I cannot argue for it, but it is all shit, it is european it must be shit, and my friends at the bar told me it is shit, so I have to use the internet to say that things are shit, but I sill cannot explain why things are shit, and I am too lazy to actually read the treaty or any information on the EU, and the local newspaper says it is shit, because those reporters have read in regional newspapers that it is shit and so I am just gonna repeat what the media says even though they know shits”.
Sounds harsh, but I am happy that at least this blog post got turned around and that we have a real discussion about things. Moving on to another blog, doing my deeds, defing the EU. Why? Because I benefited as a student from a borderless area where my degrees were acknowledged by other states, and where i could use my german health insurance in the Netherlands, and where i got to meet many other europeans, having a great time getting to know their regions from Poland to Finland to Spain. Because my grandparents still talk about the war, and from what I hear from them, I do not want to be in war (yeah we are in war with Afghanistan, bla bla, it is not the same as World War II), because I like to be able to pay with one currency, and not to have to pay fees for changing money (I lived in India for 6 Months, changing money, cost me a lot). Because I like to be able to travel freely from one country to another without having to show my passport. Because I like to be able to order books from amazone without extra-tariffs, because i liked working in the Netherlands without needing a visa or facing other restrictions, because I liked living in the Netherlands without needing a residence permit and the kind, because I liked going to Spain and phoning home and knowing that I have the EU tarif for roaming charges, because I like having my financial transactions done within a day from one country to another, because I like knowing that the rivers that Germany pollutes, have to be cleaned up by Germany before the water reaches the Netherlands, because I like knowing that whether I am in Warsaw or in Madrid, fine-dust levels have to be low, because I like knowing that even though I am outside the EU in a country where my homecountry does not have an embassy, there is most likely a Eurpean Commission representation that I can ask for consular protection!

AND SO ON!

I like to read Thomass’ comments because he tells me something about what the EU is really about and how it works. Unfortunately not everybody wants to know what they’re talking about before they express an opinion. It’s obvious this site is a bit infested by Little Britain & co, so you have to ignore about 20% of the posts.

@ Thomas. I had said earlier your comments are spot on, but I take it back now

Whoever said the EU is the bully? All I’ve ever said on this forum has been in line of supporting a very strong Europe on the world stage – for the reason of articulating European interests as opposed to other world powers, which by the way couldn’t be done by member states alone, not in a million years.

I never said the EU is a super-state. All I said was the EU OUGHT TO be one given the current geopolitical conditions.

And why on earth are you giving me that bullshit over the Srebrenica events?? I’m not a Serb / Bosnian nor do I see how those events relate to our discussion here.

Looks as if instead of keeping up the good momentum in your earlier post you’ve just become preachy and cocky.

@ droom, #44,

From my point of view Britons are like Russians little outside of a “proper Europe” but they fit nicely into a “greater Europe”.

A puppet double act; keeping the big nation states in the driving seat. BAU. Disappointing.

Well done, Pedro! I agree with you. The authors on this website and the English people commenting on articles are both so anti- EU, that i propose that on December, 1 when the Lisbon Treaty cames into force, the Brits leave the EU, and wander around in their own splendid isolation. It would be so more productive for the EU if the Brits leave. Might be nice when the Scots get independence that they join the EU instead: they are a much less frustrated than the Brits and a much more friendly and cooperative bunch of people than the bloody Brits.

Come on, just because a political system and the politicians who work within it are hugely anti-EU that does not mean that the people on the whole are. I agree that the UK is incredibly isolationist and it’s too their own detriment. I love the UK for all its quirks (http://www.cheese-rolling.co.uk/) but I do find the continuous aimless EU bashing annoying and hard work.

I am not sure what makes you think that the Scottish/Welsh or Northern Irish would be any more open and any less backwards in their approach to the EU! There is something engrained and (in my opinion) wrong in UK politics.

I am personally a strong advocate of electoral reform in UK, as are many other Brits. It is apparent that it is those in power that are incapable of implementing their promises on the issue.

The UK, often falls back on the rather poor excuse that it has a slowly evolving political system. The EU however, does not have that excuse when it chooses to appoint leaders behind closed doors. This is a new 21st century EU. I would love to see it acting in a more progressive manner.