European Union: Fading Presidential Ambitions

The haiku-writing Belgian prime minister, Herman Van Rompuy, is still little known in his own country, let alone the wider world. Photo by EPA/BGNES

The Guardian

Editorial

Who do you call when you want to call Europe? After five years of wrangling designed to deal with the Henry Kissinger question, the EU last night failed to provide a satisfactory answer. The first ever president of the European council is to be the haiku-writing Belgian prime minister, Herman Van Rompuy, who is still little known in his own country, let alone the wider world. And the continent's pioneering high-representative on foreign policy is the able but unknown Labour baroness, Catherine Ashton, who is as unelected as she is obscure. Neither will stop the traffic even in Brussels, never mind in Beijing. Talk of President Blair has bitten the dust, but so too has any hope of Europe forcing the planet to pay it fresh attention.

That ultimately disappointed hope is what sunk the EU into a prolonged bout of introspection from which it has only just emerged. The 2004 draft constitution was all about creating identifiable leadership, until the people of the Netherlands and France scuppered the plan. But the ambition of providing Europe's half-billion people with a new voice lived on through the Treaty of Lisbon, which limped through near-death in Ireland and eastern resentment to be signed and sealed this month.

At last, the European council could be galvanised by a dynamic leader instead of drifting with an endlessly-rotating chair; and at last Brussels would be able to enter discussion on the Middle East, Africa and the environment with a figure able to look Washington's secretary of state in the eye. Or, at least, that was the theory. But while Tony Blair's divisive and doomed candidacy for the first of these posts created a terrific distraction, Europe quietly returned to its old ways. A Franco-German stitch-up in favour of an obscure Belgian is exactly how things traditionally worked – it is as if the Swedes, the Poles and the rest had never joined the club. There was no puff of white smoke, but the secretive manner in which 27 proud democracies reached the decision made the Vatican look almost transparent.

President Blair would have brought the requisite stardust. But – as we have argued before – his disastrous decision to invade Iraq, and thus divide Europe, was a sin sufficiently serious to rule him out of the running. Besides, the rest of continent was always going to struggle to swallow a British presidency, as London has remained semi-detached, shunning both the Euro and the Schengen Agreement, and is forever drawing obstructive red lines. But there is no reason why Nowhere Man needed to be the only alternative to the great warrior of Baghdad. Spain's long-time prime minister Felipe González, to take one example, remains a substantial figure on the world stage who might have done the job with panache. While it is true that he did not leave public office entirely untainted, the real reason he was not seriously considered had more to do with the partisan leanings of the regimes in Paris and Berlin.

The failure of Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy to transcend parochial politics for the good of the continent is a disappointment, but it might just help to soothe the poisonous European debate in the UK. By passing over the chance to enshrine powerful central leadership, France and Germany have implicitly signalled they are content to continue with a Europe of nation states. It may not fulfil its diplomatic potential, but with an economy that compares with America's it cannot be ignored. From pollution to Palestine, it can be a force for good, and with federalist dreams fading from view, the Eurosceptically-inclined Conservatives will have no excuse not to play their full part should they take power next year.

The continent last night took a step away the top table, missing a valuable chance to halt the slide towards a G2 world, dominated by the twin poles of Washington and Beijing. Nonetheless, the EU will continue to matter, even as President Hu sits down with President Who?

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!