José Manuel Barroso is all but certain to be reappointed as European Commission president. But who will get the other plum European Union jobs that will soon be up for grabs?
The most startling suggestion I have heard in recent days – and it came from a high-ranking EU diplomat – is that the EU’s first ever full-time president could be none other than Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the UK. The thinking here is that, because the job will require its holder to represent the EU on the world stage, it would suit Brown well. He has oodles of experience and excellent connections at the highest level, starting with President Barack Obama.
Of course, Brown may have other career plans, such as winning the next British general election and stabilising the British economy. But if for some unimaginable reason these plans didn’t work out, might there be life after political death for him in Brussels?
It has always been accepted that the EU’s first president – who will serve a two-and-a-half-year term, renewable once – must be a sitting or former prime minister. But beyond that, the EU’s Lisbon treaty fails to say a great deal about what qualities he or she ought to have. The president will prepare and chair the EU’s regular summits of national leaders, a role which indicates that he or she will have to be a conciliator and a honest broker, not a temperamental or divisive figure.
He or she will also need to have a good working relationship with Barroso. But the president must not be an obscure, low-profile politico, because then leaders such as Prime Minister Vladimir Putin of Russia will make mincemeat of him or her. And the Lisbon treaty says nothing about whether the president must come from a eurozone country, rather than a non-euro area state such as the UK.
Tony Blair’s name has been mentioned numerous times in connection with the EU presidency job. But there has always been the nagging feeling in Brussels that his candidacy would be blocked by a country nursing a grudge against him (such as Belgium). At the same time, quite a few policymakers recognise that the scale of the security and economic challenges facing the EU is such that the first president needs to be a person of true international stature.
Angela Merkel or Nicolas Sarkozy, the German chancellor and French president, would fit the bill, but neither is remotely interested. It would be nice to think of an Italian in the job, but something tells me that the EU isn’t about to entrust its fate to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. That leaves the UK – and the clergyman’s son from Glasgow.
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