Posts Tagged Sarkozy

Damning with faint praise

Posted by Honor Mahony in EU on March 3, 2009

Damning with faint praise is a fine and devastating art. And French leader Nicolas Sarkozy seems to have practised it on Jose Manuel Barroso, who is seeking to become president of the European Commission for a further five years.

At a press conference on Sunday, after the EU’s anti-protectionism summit, the French leader refused to explicitly back Barroso for a second term. But not only did Sarkozy not back Barroso, he compounded his artful dodge of the issue with a limp expression of affection for the former Portuguese prime minister.

“I like Mr Barroso alot. I have liked working with him and I have confidence in him and confidence in the whole commission,” he said, in a statement that was just a mite too long and lacking in enthusiasm.

This contrasts starkly with French feelings back in July – well before the global economic meltdown put Paris and Brussels at loggerheads.

“If the question is ‘Do I have a candidate [for commission president]?’, the answer is ‘Yes’. If the question is ‘Is he sitting at the same table as me?’, the answer is also ‘Yes’,” Sarkozy said at the time.

But it is Sarkozy’s suggestion on Sunday that EU leaders should delay choosing the next commission president until after the Irish have voted again on the Lisbon Treaty that could pose the biggest threat to a presidency mark II for Barroso.

Assuming the Irish say yes, there will be more jobs up for grabs – including the EU foreign minister post and the president of the European Council.

These will have to be agreed – in time-honoured behind-closed doors fashion – according to the size of the member state, its geography and the political colour of the candidate. Choosing the commission president in June – as EU leaders had previously agreed – would then automatically narrow down the options for the remaining posts.

Waiting until the Irish voted however – the referendum looks set for September or October – would make it easier for France to push for a French national to fill one of the posts as part of a whole package.

All very vexing for Barroso who has for months been treated a virtual shoo-in for the next commission presidency. But then again, autumn is far away. Barroso still has the chance to rise and fall in French esteem several times over before decision time.

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All, except Slovenia

Posted by Honor Mahony in EU on February 27, 2009

Poland has organised a get-together of central and eastern European member states at its diplomatic mission in Brussels on Sunday. It is to be a small informal conflab on the economic crisis before the big informal conflab on the economic crisis.

Every member state from the region is going. Except Slovenia. “We were not invited,” said a spokesperson sanguinely. Eurozone member Slovenia, which is not in recession and says it will not breach the 3 percent of GDP budget deficit ceiling of the euro stability pact, considers itself an economic cut above the rest of the region.

“There is no need for Slovenia to participate at the mini-summit. We, as an euro-group member, are actively involved in dealing with the crisis in the framework of EU,” Europe minister Mitja Gaspari said on Monday.

“The position of Slovenia in this framework is clearly defined, so we do not need other forms of cooperation, especially those that are not institutionally defined,” he continued.

The minister’s (sniffy) response makes an important point. The EU’s current high-level meeting spree is helping undermine the bloc’s unity towards this economic crisis.

The pre-G20 meeting Berlin last week was attended by a hotchpotch of member states – Germany, France, UK and Italy (all G7 countries); Spain and the Netherlands (there because they managed to squeeze their way into a G20 meeting late last year); the Czech Republic (by virtue of being the EU presidency country); Luxembourg (because its leader chairs the eurozone) and the European Commission.

Several other states grumbled about not being invited – although given the vagueness of the statements agreed after the meeting, it does not look like they missed much.

But splinter summits are not the way the EU should be doing things. Yet the European Commission is validating the practice by attending the Polish gathering on Sunday.

Meanwhile, EU diplomats say that France has not abandoned its idea of holding a high-level summit just for eurozone countries.

Poland has played down the significance of its Sunday gathering, saying it has regular meetings in this configuration and that originally the meeting had been planned for Warsaw and was only changed to Brussels for convenience. This is a somewhat disingenuous argument given the high-octane nature of discussion in the EU at the moment.

No misbehaving presidents?
In a probable boost for the gravitas and unity of both of Sunday’s summits however, the president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, is not coming.

Klaus’ well-known eurosceptic views and staunch defence of more market deregulation is unlikely to have given rise to a conciliatory discussion around the table.

But who needs Klaus for a bit of controversy when the EU has Nicolas Sarkozy? The French president’s bullish and unrepentant defence of moves to protect this country’s car industry means the summit will anyway get off to a prickly start.

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