[DEBATE] : The wrong man for the EU job

[Riaz K Tayob]

Date:12/02/2008 URL: 
http://www.thehindu.com/2008/02/12/stories/2008021255330900.htm Back

Opinion - News Analysis

The wrong man for the EU job

Peter Preston

It needs a president who is a conciliator — not someone like Tony Blair.

— Photo: AP

Tony Blair… does he qualify?

For the moment, no haze of nostalgia hangs over Tony Blair. Three 
election victories have vanished from memory — we only remember Iraq and 
the snuggles with Bush. They, like his opponents of old, seem to have 
little good to say about him. “War criminal” is about as polite as it 
gets. Only luxuriously-paid jobs with international banks with more 
money than sense bring a little financial sunshine to the Blair 
breakfast table.

Is this the guy we want to be first president of the European Council of 
Ministers?

Nicolas Sarkozy seems to think so. Tony himself may or may not be 
interested, which probably means he is. And though Blair’s successor 
Gordon Brown may not be dithering, he sucks a baleful thumb. That 
William Hague joke about Prezza Tone’s car sweeping into Downing Street 
was a shaft too far.

Terrible idea

Let’s be clear, however. It’s a terrible idea (though not for the usual 
reasons evinced). You can overdo the hatred and hand-washings over 
blunders past. Iraq has been a ghastly mess and George W. Bush a ghastly 
commander-in-chief, but the big western nation that stood ostentatiously 
to one side — France — now jostles to the head of the White House 
cheerleading queue.

 From Sarajevo to Freetown, Blair isn’t always a dirty word. (And some 
of our shrewder commentators note how Brown is quietly embracing his 
domestic ideas, too.) There will, in time, be a better legacy.

But what would he bring to a role like this for a mere 30 months? The 
eloquence of a supremely polished performer, the rush and gush of 
supposed European passion, the ability to meet and greet whoever turns 
up in the Oval Office next time. Outside these shores, he’s still a big 
hitter, a name and grin winning instant recognition. Putting him into 
bat first as the voice of 27 nation states would guarantee all a 
hearing. And he, said to be ready to push aside that bank loot at the 
drop of an invitation, thinks he has a lot left to say.

The difficulty, as he ought to know, is that this isn’t the job that he 
helped negotiate. What’s needed is much more mundane than that. Just as 
it’s stupidly wasteful to see the European parliament traipse wearily 
from Strasbourg to Brussels and back, so it has become similarly 
dispiriting to watch the torch of temporary leadership passed from hand 
to hand 27 times.

There’s a huge disparity in the diplomatic resources available. (Just 
compare Slovenia now with the clout of France coming next.) There’s also 
an inevitable wambling of the agenda in a regional dance of special 
interests, when some far bigger questions — say, immigration policy — 
need consistent endeavour.

Thus the Lisbon treaty creates a chairman for two-and-a-half years who 
can help keep the union (which means ministers from member states, 
because that’s what the council is) focused on tasks and timetables for 
decisions.

This “presidency” is much the same as the present, perambulating 
presidency, except that it doesn’t lose the plot in a suitcase somewhere 
between Ljubljana and Paris. It is more like the Swiss system of 
rotating prime ministers (and nobody outside Switzerland needs to 
remember who’s PM anyway).

That’s the specification here, a rather non-grand spec for future 
bureaucratic action. Must be proven administrator; will need 
conciliation skills, stamina and extra helpings of humility; high public 
profile not a handicap (when it comes to kicking Latvia or Slovakia 
behind the arras) but tact and resilience valued above any other traits. 
Is that Blair past or Blair present? Not remotely. He can’t be 
self-effacing. His administrative legacy is a civil service that loses 
as many laptops as plots. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008


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