Back to Brussels Blog homepageIt is unfortunate that Dominique de Villepin, the former French prime minister, must stand trial for alleged involvement in a plot to smear his compatriot, President Nicolas Sarkozy. Unfortunate for de Villepin, and unfortunate also for Sergey Stanishev, Bulgaria’s socialist prime minister.
Only a week before the sad news about de Villepin came out, Stanishev announced with great solemnity that he had appointed the French ex-premier to chair a panel of eminent foreigners who will advise the Bulgarian government. Their specific task will be to help Bulgaria overcome its massive problems with corruption, organised crime and a rotten judicial system.
Many of Bulgaria’s fellow European Union member-states are fed up to the back teeth with Bulgaria’s failure to tackle these problems. The European Commission must decide soon whether to drive the point home by permanently denying Bulgaria hundreds of millions of euros in aid that it suspended in July.
Stanishev’s creation of a board of foreign advisers is not such a bad idea. And it would be churlish to suggest, as some have, that Stanishev’s appointees are perhaps not quite from the topmost drawer of European public life. They include Josep Piqué, a former Spanish foreign minister; António Vitorino of Portugal, a former EU commissioner for justice and home affairs; Finland’s Aunus Salmi, a former member of the European Court of Auditors; Paul Demaret, the rector of the College of Europe, the post-graduate school in the Belgian city of Bruges; and, of course, de Villepin.
Each in his own way will make a significant contribution to the panel and to its understanding of corruption, organised crime and judicial hanky-panky.
As for de Villepin, one cannot repeat too often that all individuals, including former French prime ministers accused of using the intelligence services to wreck the political career of a future head of state, are innocent until proven guilty.
What seems beyond question is de Villepin’s fascination, as a prolific poet and historian as well as politician, with the concept of the great leader who falls heroically into the abyss. Just look at his 634-page work on Napoleon Bonaparte, entitled “The Hundred Days, or the Spirit of Sacrifice”, which chronicles the French emperor’s escape from Elba and return to power in France until his final defeat at Waterloo in June 1815.
Vive l’empereur!
I have been the FT's Brussels bureau chief since September 2007 and was previously the bureau chief in Frankfurt and Rome. In this blog you'll find my thoughts on everything from the European Union's foreign and economic policies to the fortunes of its political leaders - as well as the more light-hearted aspects of life in Europe.
