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“It seems (..) an interesting contribution.” European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso didn’t exactly shrug when asked about Germany’s suggestion to set up a European Monetary Fund. But the words rather did. The proposal was put forward by the minister for finance of Germany and lacked “any details,” he noted.

In all, a supremely understated response. And clearly not of the order liberal leader Guy Verhofstadt was looking for. But there was more. Lest, it would seem, the casual observer may be led to think that the commission was no longer in control of the loud discussion started by “the minister for finance of Germany.”

There will be a draft directive on derivatives before the summer; a market abuse directive before the end of the year; and a communication on reinforced economic policy coordination and country surveillance (time unspecified). Meanwhile, the commission is “ready to propose” an EMF, only it’s calling it a ‘European framework for coordinated assistance.’

And yes, it “might probably require” a treaty change.

Two things to take from the parts of the debate on Greece. The disaster was all of its own making. And a little bit the fault of other member states too. The commission had in the past called for more “audit powers” several times. “Unfortunately this was rejected by member states,” said Barroso, as if he was talking about the vagaries of the weather. Unfortunately it was raining that day. Now governments appear to have seen the error of their ways. Even Germany is on board.

“I don’t have any position in favour or against GMOs,” said Barroso in response to a question about why he was “pushing” GMOs onto an unwilling public. The college makes decisions only on the basis of the opinion its scientific advisory board. A cluster of Greens holding placards saying “For a GMO-free Europe,” hissed and booed as appropriate.

There were about 30 of them. They roughly tripled participation in Question Hour. Alas, they proved to be a one-issue lot and were soon gone.

EPP leader Joseph Daul made a series of tough-sounding statements on the diplomatic service. His delivery, note-read, meant it was like being blasted by cotton wool. Perhaps it is because both questioner and the questioned are of the same political colour.

“Hats-off to you,” said a Dutch MEP sarcastically noting that Barroso managed to spend 2000 euros a day while going about his presidential duties. “Why can’t you just publish these details?” he exclaimed.

Barroso, who rather thrives on these exchanges, drew himself up. “I do not accept this easy criticism, populistic and demagogic.”

And this led to what can only be described as a landmark moment in Barroso’s question time to date. Socialist leader Martin (Shouty) Schulz, normally loudly, resolutely and reliably anti-Barroso cheered and thumped his desk in agreement. One can only wonder at this strange turn of events.

It’s interesting to see how the tables have turned. Until now it was the eurozone putting all the pressure on Greece. Eurozone bigwigs wagged their fingers at the spendthrift state, shocked by its massive budget deficit and fiddling of the statistics. European Commission and ECB officials as well as German Chancellor Angela Merkel (upon whom the other side of this saga rests) demanded austerity measures. And then more of them.

“Greece must understand that taxpayers in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands are not prepared to correct Greek fiscal policy mistakes,” said eurozone chief Jean-Claude Juncker at one point.

The game of promised, but not yet given, support appears to have paid off. The Greek austerity plan unveiled on Wednesday went further than had been expected (although some Greek papers note that more structural reforms are needed for longterm growth). European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said the Athens programme to correct its fiscal imbalances “is now on track.” Juncker said much the same thing.

But having been forced into three budgets in as many months, prime minister George Panandreou, (a socialist who came to power last October on the back of promises of wages increases and high social spending) has shifted the weight of expectation back onto the eurozone, and specifically Berlin.

He has said he will go to the IMF if he doesn’t get the financial support he is looking for. “We have shown we can take difficult decisions. We are waiting for European support – the other side of the agreement.”

The IMF route is widely seen as the least desirable option, a reinforcement of the impression that the 16-member eurozone cannot deal with its own problems.

Papandreou is obviously expecting an answer soon. He will visit Berlin on Friday, Paris on Sunday and Washington early next week.

While the Greek prime minister faces popular unrest for the harsh measures he has taken without much support from his eurozone partners, Merkel faces a domestic backlash for any aid given to Greece.

Several politicians in her own party have focused on the pension ages in the different countries, incensed that German taxpayers will fund an earlier retirement age for Greeks. Others have demanded that Greece sell off a range of assets, such as uninhabited islands, to cut its debt. A poll in the mass-selling tabloid Bild on Monday showed that 4 out 5 were against a rescue for Greece.

So far Merkel has remained tight-lipped. She has let it be known that the meeting won’t be about “aid commitments.” However, several newspapers have reported that discussions within the German cabinet on how financial assistance would look have intensified.

The Wall Street Journal on Thursday quoted some hardnosed officials. “We can only justify a bailout if it’s about protecting Germany, not Greece,” said an aide to Merkel. Another senior official is quoted as saying: “We aren’t interested in bailing out Greece’s interest-rate spreads—only in preventing Greek insolvency.”

But the answer has to come soon. Greece has to service debts to the tune of around 23 billion in April and May. Whether it will manage is the immediate question.

The longer term question is whether the eurozone can survive without a political and economic union behind it, without some sort of tax raising power and ability to make transfers to poorer eurozone members. And, of course, whether citizens, let alone governments want to make this huge political step.

Herman Van Rompuy has one major advantage over his fellow new EU appointee Catherine Ashton. His job as President of the European Council is entirely new. There were few expectations, except that he should not be so bold as to try and steal the limelight from national leaders. And he had no predecessors. (Ashton, as EU foreign policy chief, has to contend with Javier Solana’s ‘tireless diplomat’ ghost.)

And despite being nominated by EU leaders in November, Van Rompuy did not officially take up the post until 1 January. He had his first major appearance at an informal summit that he convened almost six weeks later.

This has allowed the former Belgian PM to stroll into the job at his own pace. Quietly meeting leaders and assessing his first moves. His manner remains unassuming. First the weather and then a faulty microphone got the better of him during his two public appearances at the 11 February summit. And his speech delivery, despite flashes of  humour, is dry to say the least.

But it would be a mistake to dismiss him as a grey nobody, inclined only to do what member states want. Van Rompuy is also busy trying to make them do what he wants.

He himself counts among his achievements the fact that the political declaration in support of Greece after the summit was made in the EU’s name, and presented by him. Although naturally, Germany, and to a lesser extent France, were running the show behind the scenes.

And after the meeting he made sure to send around a letter to EU leaders outlining what he thought had been agreed at the summit. The letter contained eight points, largely to do with the EU’s future economic strategy. An impressive tally for a informal meeting that was both brief and largely dominated by the Greek crisis.

One of the points contained in the letter concerns Van Rompuy’s presence at the G20. Prior to the Lisbon Treaty coming into force, the EU council president’s attendance at G20 events was open to question. According to the treaty, the president represents the EU in CFSP issues only. The commission president, who attends G20 meetings, does everything else. But Van Rompuy promptly removed that question mark. He will be in Toronto too in June as he made clear in the letter and in a recent speech to European Parliament – a move that has apparently upset the British and unsettled the commission.

This is all part of a wider policy path laid out in a thoughtful speech Van Rompuy gave at the College of Europe in Bruges last week in which he said that more economic governance is the key to making the EU stronger internally and therefore globally. In addition, he suggests that pursing global economic governance through forums such as  the G20, noting that foreign economic policy is  likelier to give rise to a unified EU voice.

To  this end, he is hatching plans to have EU leaders meet more often – up to ten times a year. While member states are not cheering wildly at the prospect, there does appear to be a general willingness to gather more often (though perhaps not ten times) so long as the meetings are useful.

“I consider it the most daunting political task of the office of permanent President to help the Union
find its compass,” he said in Bruges.

Make no mistake about it, he has started trying.

A small follow-up to the previous post. It was all down to Kiev’s invitation list, it seems. Ukraine invited EU council president Herman Van Rompuy, EU commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and EP chief Jerzy Buzek to attend this week’s inauguration ceremony of Viktor Yanukovych.

Barroso did not take up the offer. Nor did Van Rompuy. “It’s not usual that by such an inauguration that countries or institutions are present at the level of prime minister, minister or president,” said a spokesperson.

In light of these pending no-shows, Ashton, who had planned to attend the informal defence ministers meeting, then cancelled to go to Kiev. Her people argue that not to have gone would have sent a poor signal to a country whose Russia-friendly president had just taken the fairly surprising decision to make Brussels rather than Moscow the destination for the symbolic first trip abroad.

Well, even if Ashton riled defence ministers to the extent some felt the need to twitter about it (frankly, he doesn’t come out of this too well either), Ukraine officials are pleased. One high-level contact told me that Kiev was “honoured” and “very much appreciated” Ashton’s attendance. It was a“clear-cut” signal from the EU and a “very good beefing-up of the decision by Yanukovych to go to Brussels first.” Yanukovich will be in Brussels on Monday.

So there we go. Relations with an important neighbour were favoured over taking part in the first informal chat with defence ministers under the new Lisbon Treaty. I suspect that had she decided against the Ukraine inauguration she would have come in for criticism too. As it was, I don’t think she missed any giant leaps forward in EU defence integration.

Well this is the EU at its finest, isn’t it? It talked the new Lisbon Treaty up a storm before it came into place. Taking a frankly rose-tinted view of what the new posts it contains will mean for foreign policy and external representation: allowing it to speak with one voice and giving the EU a coherent presence on the world stage. Conveniently forgetting, of course, that while the tools may be there, you still need politically-willed hands to make good use of them.

And what was member states’ first act of blessing for the new treaty? Choosing a foreign policy chief – Catherine Ashton – with no foreign policy experience and on the basis of a set of laughably arbitrary criteria (politics, gender and geography).

The second act of blessing has been an incessant sniping since she took over the job. Amid ‘great’ surprise that the novice to the world of diplomacy has not hit the ground running. She not only needs to master the various policy briefs, she also needs to do a job that three people did before her (the High Represenative, the external relations commissioner, and the foreign minister of the rotating presidency country) and set up a new diplomatic  service.

With a foot in both the commission (where she is vice-president) and in the council (representing member states), she is exposed to internal rivalries and turf wars of both camps.

It all started as off largely Gallic-tinged and as a whisper. Now the criticism is deafening. And following her absence at the informal defence ministers meeting in Spain, it has big names behind it.

Here is the French defence minister, Herve Morin.
“Isn’t it rich that this morning, to display the ties between Nato and the EU, we have the Nato secretary general (Anders Fogh Rasmussen) here but not the high representative for the first meeting since the Lisbon treaty came into effect.” His Dutch colleague twittered on her “notable” absence while Spain’s Carme Chacon “regretted” it.

Sure Ashton has made mistakes. Although her decision – much criticised – not to fly to Haiti after the earthquake was correct (it would have been an unnecessary photo opportunity in a time of great misery), some of her subsequent actions have been questionable.

She seemed to have allowed commission president Jose Manuel Barroso to call the shots when it came to the appointment of the EU ambassador in Washington while not going to the defence ministers meeting in favour of a trip to the Ukraine president’s inauguration gives the impression of a lack of interest in what ought to be a key part of her dossier. Her detractors note that Javier Solana, her predecessor, made all the meetings.

But the open criticism is self-indulgent and unhelpful. It serves neither the EU nor Catherine Ashton who, lest member states forget, is supposed to be the EU foreign policy chief until 2014.

Having said that, the only person who can stop it is Ashton herself. The criticism has now reached a self-fulfilling momentum. She needs to stand up to her detractors and say: “Enough is enough.”

Jose Manuel Barroso may have over-reached himself this time. Publicly he is fond of saying that the Lisbon Treaty creates no winners among its EU institutions and that each of them emerges stronger from the new set –up and equally so.

Behind the scenes, however, he has been working to make sure that he does emerge a winner from the new legal set-up, now in place for almost three months. The prize is exposure, influence and a prominent place at the table in international gatherings.

Because although the Lisbon Treaty says the commission represents the EU in all external matters except CFSP – something Barroso is at pains to underline – there are now two other permanent actors in the picture. Catherine Ashton as EU foreign policy chief and Herman Van Rompuy as president of the European Council.

Fond of the limelight, Barroso started his chess moves early. In June last year, he appointed Joao Vale de Almeida, his right hand man, to head up the external relations units in the commission. The obvious aim was to have a trusted aide dealing with foreign policy questions.

Since then, it has been to Barroso’s luck that two low-key actors are now foreign policy chief and EU president, both compromise figures and both chosen, particularly Ashton, following a checklist of criteria (geography, gender, political affiliation).

The foreign policy chief, who has a foot in both the commission and the council, being vice-president of the first and supposed to represent the foreign policy wishes of the latter, could have been a real challenge to Barroso. A powerful figure could have relegated him to the sidelines, outshone him in his own house.

But in Ashton, new to the world of diplomacy and still finding her feet in the huge new job, Barroso has fallen on his feet. This appears to have emboldened him to make the surprise move to send his man – Joao Vale de Almeida – to head the EU delegation in Washington. This remarkable for two reasons – member states seem to have been caught unawares and de Almeida is a civil servant, not a politician. John Bruton, former Irish prime minister, held the post last. It simply looks like a ploy by Barroso to get a trusty set of eyes and ears in Washington.

Now Sweden has complained. Foreign minister Carl Bildt, a heavy-weight politician whose name was also briefly mentioned as a possible contender for Ashton’s post, has asked for clarification on how the appointment was made. Barroso’s people say he was entitled to make the move because the EU’s new architecture – the diplomatic service – is not yet in place. Still it looks rather like Ashton has been out-manoeuvered.

It was the ‘Kiss&Ride’ that did it. The vacuous English-language sign that broke the camel’s back. Clearly, it means a short term carpark. But who could have known that the locals (in Bavaria) would think it has seedier connotations? A flurry of letters to the local politician ensued.

A brief wander through a German train station will see you directed to “Service points” (help desks) and “Counters” (ticket desks) after which you could “call a bike” or opt for “car-sharing” but perhaps not before having called some “hotlines” or being handed some “fliers.” Fine (just about) if you speak English but too much for those who do not.

Now Germany’s railway company (Deutsche Bahn) is taking a stand against the plethora of English-language signs in its stations that confuse and irritate ordinary Germans. The policy is to be dropped. Much to joy of the German Language Association whose website dolefully notes that there are over 7000 English words in the German lexicon

Many of these must surely be in business German which is littered with Anglicisms either adopted as is or partially Germanified. Something can be ‘gemanaged’ or ‘upgedated’, for instance, while you are in ‘einem Meeting’ or take ‘ein Conference call.’ Ordinary German too is full of English words such as ‘second hand’ or ‘outfit’ or the ubiquitous ‘cool.’

So is a German language academy in the offing? An institute that like its French counterpart would defend the home language against the English creep? Probably not, Berlin has stayed out of it so far.

But it is interesting (and good obviously) that Germans are taking more public pride in their language. When the country held the EU presidency in 2007, it made it a policy to speak German (and not English) wherever possible. An offshoot of the generally more political and mentally confident nation perhaps. (This is a country where to speak of being proud of being German, or display the national flag was until very recently considered a taboo.)

The language issue has become more politicized now. German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle made headlines last year when he refused to answer a question in English at a press conference shortly after he took up the post.

Meanwhile, transport minister Peter Raumsauer has banned unnecessary English words such as “taskforce”, “Knowhow” and “Travel Management” from his ministry.

Still whatever about giving priority to German in train stations and being more assertive generally about the language, Germans are merciless with their political representatives who they feel should speak English well. Germany’s EU commissioner Guenter Oettinger, who speaks both heavily accented German and English, has been subjected to a ladleful of scorn in the media.

The European Parliament is a funny old place. Armed with ever increasing legislative powers, as MEPs giddy with the as-yet unexplored possibilities of the Lisbon Treaty tell us with admirable regularity, it is nevertheless a legislature without a single demos, elected on a low average voter turnout and where a stifling sense of consensus reigns.

This leads to odd politics. The traditional power-sharing stitch up between the main right and left parties on the presidency of their institution being a case in point. The grand coalition of right, left and liberal MEPs that lies behind most decisions is another. The absence of a sense of real political effect for your vote is a third.

The three main parties argue that their coalition politics makes them stronger when it comes to positioning the parliament as whole during legislative negotiations with member states. The flipside is that they remove the ‘politics’ from the EU’s only directly elected institution and make it a rather snooze-inducing complexity for ordinary citizens for whom the traditional for and against / left and right is removed or at the very least obscured.

Consider this: the right dominated in the June European elections. There was much speculation at the time about whether the right – would then dominate policy-making. Between them the EPP (265 members), the liberals (84) and European Conservatives and Reformists (54) have the majority in the 736-member parliament. If you throw in the eurosceptic Freedom and Democracy group, which has something of the untouchable about them as far as most other MEPs are concerned (at least publicly), then it is clearly a right-wing parliament.

But a recent report on the voting behaviour of the first six months of the European Parliament by the excellent VoteWatch.EU, shows this is not (yet) the case. The EPP has lost a higher percentage of votes between July and December 2009 than in the last legislature.

The main beneficiary has been the Liberal group (the third sized grouping behind the Socialists) which thoroughly enjoys its king-maker status in the EU assembly. It has seen an increased percentage of ‘win’ votes.

It is, of course, the very early days of this current legislature. The centre-right dominates in the parliament, the commission and the council. At some point this will start to be felt.

But still probably only to a certain extent because of the nature of checks and balances in the parliament, and the I’ll scratch your back nature of EP politics. According to Professor Simon Hix, a political scientist from the London School of Economics, the only way to ensure some change  would be to alter the way of allocating committee chairs and rapporteurships, highly influential posts in the parliament. Currently distributed proportionally, he suggests allocating more such posts to the political group that won the most votes in the election. An interesting idea.

Additionally, he and and his colleague Sara Hagemann – both are behind the VoteWatch project – note the continued cohesiveness within the political groupings, even if the ideological net has been cast pretty widely. (The centre-right EPP group contains the free-trade oriented Nordics and the more protectionist French while the Liberal group regularly weeps into its cups over the socially conservative views of its Irish members.)

These differences notwithstanding, this general trend towards group cohesiveness – in evidence since the mid 1980s – appears to be growing as the parliament’s strength increase. And is likely to further grow as MEPs seek to influence legislation in new areas of power such as farm policy or JHA, say the LSE academics.

(Incidentally, they are planning a VoteWatch for the council of ministers. Shining light into this particular corner is proving to be quite a challenge. It will take another year, they reckon.)

My my, change may be afoot.

When Herman Van Rompuy became president of the European Council, his first act was to call an informal meeting of EU leaders. His second act may be to call many more.

Nothing is written in stone yet. It never is after these informal gatherings but Van Rompuy says he intends to propose that the 27 leaders meet once a month.

Following Thursday’s meeting he said there were so many topics that leaders wanted to talk about that he “drew the conclusion” they should meet more often.

This he noted, in what he is becoming his trademark self-deprecatory manner, would have the added benefit of meaning “there will be fewer complaints of my invisibility.”

This would be a very interesting development indeed.

At the moment, EU leaders meet four times a year formally. And every now and then for an extraordinary (informal) summit, such as the one that took place today, originally to discuss the Union’s longterm economic strategy, before Greek ‘events’ took over.

Regular gathering would have the simple effect of EU leaders getting to know each other better. The ceremony and sense of ‘occasion’ that normally surrounds these meetings would necessarily fall away as habit and regularity took over.

Potential lapses into protectionism, a political or economic problem, small bubbles of resentment – any such incidences in a particular EU corner would then only be one month away from being discussed at the highest political level.

The regular gatherings would have the potential to politicise Europe to a far greater degree. The pressure to have a result, if only a commitment to a future result, would likely lead to decisions being made more quickly. This could have important implications for the drive to further economic coordination.

According to Van Rompuy, the sour taste left by the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit, where the EU did not feature in negotiations on the final deal, has focussed the minds. Economic power translates into global political power. Yes, it’s obvious. But sometimes such points need to be driven home.

For the European Commission the extra meetings would also be an interesting development.

For this meeting, the question of the EU’s future economic strategy was the subject of careful political choreography. The commission president is to oversee the content(fewer more differentiated goals); the EU president the governance of it (carrots are in, talk of sticks is out).

Future such meetings could change the political dynamics. On the one hand, commission president Jose Manuel Barroso could use the occasions to float legislative ideas and take soundings. On the other hand, it could be used by member states to sideline the commission further.

All of the above, of course, is based on the assumption that Van Rompuy drew the right conclusion today.

When Herman Van Rompuy in December said he intended to call an extraordinary summit in February to discuss the economic crisis, it seemed a perfectly adequate, and not particularly controversial, first step for the newly elected president of the European Council.

The EU is rather good at summitry after all. Matters are discussed and/or argued to a greater or lesser degree. Sometimes there are breakthrough agreements. More often there are fudges.

Then everybody goes home again. They leave in their wake, wordy conclusions (if it is a formal summit), a promise of future wordy conclusions (if it is as informal gathering) and somewhat disparate accounts of the meeting itself.

Until now this was more or less sufficient. Thursday’s summit, informal though it is, needs to be different.

EU leaders last gathered together in December. Since then, the Union has suffered two public humiliations. The first during the climate change meeting in Copenhagen where it was sidelined in negotiations on an issue where it considers itself a global leader.

Then US president Barack Obama indicated it wasn’t worth turning up to this Spring’s regular bilateral summit with the EU. That hurt. But not as much as the suspicion that he might have a point.

Those reminders that a union of 27 disagreeing member states is not considered a world force by other powers form the backdrop to this meeting.

So this summit needs to show the EU at its more coherent best. This would, at the very least be morale boosting, as well as sending an important wider political signal of general purposefulness. Something that has been missing for quite some time.

Which brings us to the Greece. Speculation has been mounting over recent weeks about whether other eurozone members will come to the rescue of the debt-ridden country. The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times today report German officials as saying help for Greek is being considered. ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet is attending the summit.

Given the build-up, a clear message on Greece needs to emerge from the meeting. This would calm jittery markets and send the signal that the EU is dealing its biggest ever test to its 16-member eurozone.

A second clear message is needed on the EU’s new ten-year economic strategy – originally the main reason for calling the summit. The last strategy was a glaring failure. This meeting is about sounding out opinions on how to make the next plan more concise and make member states stick to its goals – a contentious point to date. At the very least, a first agreement over policy objectives should be evident after the discussion.

The meeting is also a high stakes one for Van Rompuy personally. It is his first EU show. The former Belgian PM is regularly said to be a keen behind-the-scenes negotiator -  the main reason for his being picked to be EU president in the first place. The particular political and economic currents of today have turned the summit into a bruising first test of his talents at forging consensus.

He raised expectations further by being virtually invisible since taking up the job and by changing the summit venue. Instead of the usual meeting place (the dreary council building), EU leaders will meet in an old library nearby. This informal setting (with only one advisor allowed in a near-by room) is supposed to make leaders really talk to one another. And produce some ideas. Will they rise to the occasion?

However member states would sell a failed summit – probably by playing it down as an informal meeting – it would be shackled to Van Rompuy for the foreseeable future. Among those keenly watching from the sidelines to see if he will make a go of it is European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, fighting to keep himself and his institution relevant.