Tag: Barroso

All flowers and smiles as Barroso sweeps to a second term

September 16, 2009 12:19 pm by Tony Barber

In the end, it was all so easy. A few minutes ago, José Manuel Barroso won approval for a second term as European Commission president, after a vote in the European Parliament that went 382 in his favour and 219 against, with 117 abstentions.

Barroso thus comfortably cleared the threshold of 369 votes – that is, more than half of the 736-seat parliament – that he needed in order to remove any doubts about his political authority over the next five years. No wonder he was wreathed in smiles as he accepted a congratulatory bouquet of flowers from Cecilia Malmström, Sweden’s European affairs minister.

Under the terms of the European Union’s Nice treaty, Barroso required only a simple majority for reappointment. That was scarcely in question, given that he didn’t face a rival candidate. But if his tally had fallen substantially below 369, there would have been strong pressure for him to undergo another vote, because the EU’s Lisbon treaty – which EU leaders hope will come into force next year – requires the nominee to win an absolute majority.

The lingering threat of another vote would surely have weakened Barroso and complicated his task of selecting his next Commission. It would also have damaged the EU’s image among the general European public, and it would no doubt have caused derision in certain capitals beyond the EU’s eastern frontier.

But all that no longer matters. The real question now is how Barroso intends to capitalise on his success. Immediately after the vote, he told MEPs that he would devote his second term to building “a Europe of solidarity and freedom”.

Like a lot of what Barroso says, this can mean everything and nothing. It is a campaign slogan, designed to hoover up as many votes as possible from the left, the centre and the right, rather than a serious policy programme. In his recent speeches, there hasn’t been much more detail - although, to be fair, he is promising to reorganise Commission portfolios so that there will be three new posts covering fundamental rights rights and civil liberties, internal affairs and migration, and climate change.

For the moment, Barroso has every right to celebrate his victory. But in the coming weeks we will need to see concrete ideas from him on how he proposes to protect and strengthen the EU’s single market, persuade national governments not to undermine the common European interest, and convince European citizens of the EU’s continuing relevance to their lives.

Tags: Barroso, EU Parliament, Lisbon Treaty
Posted in EU Commission, EU Parliament | Permalink

Why González is wary of landing top EU job

September 8, 2009 1:29 pm by Tony Barber

When does No mean Yes – or maybe? I’m not venturing here into the treacherous territory of date rape law, but rather thinking of what politicians say when they’re asked if they want to be the European Union’s first permanent president.

Take Felipe González, Spain’s socialist prime minister from 1982 to 1996. Rumours have swirled around Brussels for months that González is interested in the job and that President Nicolas Sarkozy of France would be pleased to see him get it. González’s fellow Spaniard, Javier Solana, who is the EU’s foreign policy high representative, is on record as saying last June that he believes the ex-premier “has the energy and the capacity for the job”.

So I feel it’s my duty to report that John Thornhill, a Financial Times colleague, took González to one side at a conference in Italy last weekend and put the $64,000 question to him. Here is what the great man replied: “Some people are talking about myself, and I have said that I will not be a candidate. This means that I have to be extremely careful about talking about other candidates, whether it is to support them or not. Some people could criticise me for making my views public when I’m not going to be a candidate.”

González’s reply looks superficially like a No. In fact, to say that you’re not a candidate isn’t the same thing at all as saying that you will never accept the job under any circumstances.

As it happens, I think there is one very good reason why González would be right to think twice before taking on this particular job. The permanent EU presidency is set to come into operation in January, if Irish voters approve the EU’s Lisbon reform treaty in a referendum next month and if Václav Klaus and Lech Kaczynski, the recalcitrant Czech and Polish presidents, can be persuaded to sign the document.

But the establishment of the permanent presidency will not mean the abolition of the existing EU system, under which every country holds the union’s rotating presidency for six months at a time. All EU member-states love their six months in the spotlight, and many have no intention of stepping to one side in order to let the EU’s first permanent president grab all the attention.

And guess what? The country that will hold the rotating presidency from January 1 to June 30, 2010 – just when the permanent presidency is to be launched – is none other than Spain. The Spanish government has absolutely no intention of meekly vanishing into the shadows to let the EU’s first permanent president steal the show.

Perhaps national pride would induce a more accommodating attitude from Spain, if González were picked for the job. But I wouldn’t bet on it – and from the sound of things, nor would Felipe.

Tags: Barroso, Brussels, European Council president, Felipe González, France, François Fillon, Lisbon Treaty, Tony Blair
Posted in EU | Permalink

Moment of truth looms in Barroso’s reappointment battle

August 31, 2009 11:56 am by Tony Barber

Like much public life in the European Union, José Manuel Barroso’s battle to win reappointment as European Commission president is a battle of low politics dressed up in high ideals. Barroso will be denied a second five-year term unless he secures the approval of the European Parliament, where a vote on his future should have taken place in July but was postponed until mid-September. Now the moment of truth is close. What can Barroso say and do to win over his socialist, Green and liberal critics?

One clue came in a speech, almost entirely ignored by the media, that Barroso delivered last week at a Barcelona business school. Here he all but set out his policy programme for the next five years. The speech’s most important passage read as follows: “The recent recovery spots are fragile and do not allow for any complacency. In any case, it is clear that global growth will not return to pre-crisis levels for some time – if at all. Those growth rates – and the economic model behind them – were simply not sustainable.”

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Barroso’s opponents will not be alone in asking whether the Commission president did not in fact spend much of his first term promoting the very same growth model, based on financial market innovation, deregulation and cheap capital, that he now says was unsustainable. Still, as he points out, “the failure to predict and head off the crisis was a collective failure”, with economists, bankers, regulators, supervisors and politicians all sharing responsibility.

What model should the EU embrace in the future? Barroso lists seven “new sources of growth”: a) open global markets and investment regimes; b) maximising the potential of the EU’s single market; c) building networks such as high-speed broadband and energy interconnections; d) innovation policies, including a new emphasis on government procurement and intellectual property strategy; e) improving employees’ skills so that they can switch from declining industries to new sectors; f) developing a low-carbon economy; and g) improving the quality of public expenditure.

It all sounds sensible enough. A Commission president is not an economic policy tsar for Europe. But he or she can offer a vision, speaking up for the EU’s collective interest when national leaders find it inconvenient to do so. Barroso, in his speech, was consciously selecting policy areas where he knows he could make a difference by stating the case for common European action.

Whether it will be enough to appease his parliamentary critics is another matter.

Tags: Barroso, EU Parliament, European economic model, Financial crisis
Posted in EU Commission, EU Parliament | Permalink

“Stop Barroso” Campaign huffs and puffs to a crawl

July 16, 2009 3:12 pm by Tony Barber

Is the “Stop Barroso” campaign finally running out of steam? Leaders of the main political groups in the European Parliament have pencilled in September 16 as the day when they will hold a vote on whether to confirm José Manuel Barroso for a second five-year term as European Commission president.

If this arrangement holds, then it will mark a defeat for the anti-Barroso forces who wanted to delay the vote until after Ireland held its October 2 referendum on the European Union’s Lisbon treaty. They were striving to create a situation in which (assuming the Irish voted Yes) the EU would simultaneously choose its first full-time president, the bloc’s new foreign policy high representative and the Commission president. In such circumstances, they hoped, Barroso would no longer be a shoo-in to run the Commission. Other candidates would emerge. Haggling would ensue. It would (they dreamed) be adeus, José Manuel.

This scenario now looks rather less likely. It reflects two factors. First, all 27 EU governments support Barroso. There neither is nor has been any other publicly named candidate for the Commission presidency. Secondly, it has been crystal-clear throughout this unedifying saga that certain MEPs have been undermining Barroso purely for the purpose of securing influence over his future Commission and its policies as well as jobs and political power for themselves.

It is, of course, a fundamental human right of every MEP to make himself or herself look foolish in the public eye. But perhaps it’s time now to get back to the real business of stabilising Europe’s financial sector and hauling the economy out of recession?

Tags: Barroso, EU Parliament
Posted in EU Commission, EU Parliament | Permalink

The top five priorities of the next European Commission

July 14, 2009 2:28 pm by Tony Barber

What should be the top five priorities of the next European Commission?

1) Top of my list is the defence, and if possible the strengthening, of the single European market. This is the European Union’s bedrock achievement. It secures prosperity for its citizens, and it underpins the EU’s collective weight in the world. Without the single market, the EU would lose not merely its cohesion but its very reason for existence. The single market is under strain at present because of the emergency measures taken over the past year to prop up Europe’s banking system. These have, in effect, suspended the EU’s state aid rules in this sector. The Commission will need to be tough in making sure that EU governments do not manipulate the rules as the emergency measures are gradually withdrawn. Meanwhile, it should continue to press the case for integrating and liberalising the EU’s service sector, which accounts for two-thirds of all EU economic activity.

2) In second place is the need to propose useful reforms to the EU’s system of financial market regulation. I stress “useful”, because the legislative initiatives put forward so far range from very good to mediocre. The first category includes the creation of a EU-wide systemic risk-monitoring agency and new EU supervisory authorities. The second category includes the proposals for clamping down on hedge funds and private equity. These had little or nothing to do with the causes of the financial crisis. The Commission is understandably under populist political pressures to take aim at easy targets, but it needs to be more courageous and redraft its proposals.

3) Third is a sharper definition of the Commission’s climate change and energy security policies. Under José Manuel Barroso’s leadership, the Commission has done a good job of raising the profile of these areas. But in my view its effectiveness has been diminished by having three separate commissioners for energy, the environment and transport. Transport policy, in particular, is considerably less “green” and less ambitious than the EU’s rhetoric implies. The idea of appointing a “super-commissioner” for energy and climate change has been around for quite a while in Brussels. Now is the time to put it into practice.

4) Fourth is the task of ensuring that the Commission president and the EU’s foreign policy high representative – not to mention the EU’s first full-time president – do not tread on each other’s toes and make a mess of the EU’s relations with the outside world. I am assuming here that the Lisbon treaty will come into effect next year. Under the treaty’s terms, the next foreign policy chief, replacing Javier Solana of Spain, will double up as Commission vice-president. The scope for collisions with the Commission president is obvious. Another thing that needs sorting out is whether the foreign policy job will be purely diplomatic and political in nature, or whether it will have influence over areas such as humanitarian aid, enlargement and trade. Up to now, these have been the preserve of different commissioners, but they are clearly intimately linked with the conduct of EU foreign policy.

5) Fifth and finally – but this is just a baffled observer’s thought – it might be a good idea for the Commission to get itself a president for the next five years. Is anyone in the European Parliament listening?

Tags: Barroso, climate change, energy security, EU foreign policy, EU single market, Financial crisis, Lisbon Treaty
Posted in Energy, Environment, EU Commission, Foreign policy | Permalink

Congratulations to Buzek! (Don’t bother applying, Frattini.)

July 6, 2009 2:00 pm by Tony Barber

There are two ways of looking at the imminent appointment of Jerzy Buzek, a former Polish prime minister, as the next president of the European Parliament. The first way is to applaud Europe’s politicians for doing the right thing and giving one of the European Union’s top jobs to a man from one of the 10 former communist countries in central and eastern Europe that joined the EU in 2004-2007. This is the highest honour yet accorded to a public figure from one of the EU’s new member-states. Poles are justifiably proud.

The second way, however, is to be honest and recognise that the job of parliament president is about the lowest-ranking position someone could be given without its looking like an insult. Buzek, who belongs to the legislature’s main centre-right group, won’t even hold the job for the assembly’s full five-year term: under a deal with the socialists, he will step down after two and a half years and hand over the reins to a socialist. The fact is that, by giving this post to Buzek, older and bigger member-states in western Europe are making sure that they will get all the really big jobs when they come up for grabs later this year.

These are the European Commission presidency (already earmarked for Portugal’s José Manuel Barroso, though his reappointment to a second term is running into a few embarrassing difficulties); other top Commission portfolios, such as those covering competition, the internal market and trade; the job of EU foreign policy high representative (shortly to be vacated by Spain’s Javier Solana); and the full-time presidency of the European Council, which represents national governments. The latter job will be created only if the EU’s Lisbon treaty is ratified by all member-states. But assuming that it comes into existence, I will eat mon chapeau if it doesn’t go to a western European.

There is an interesting side story to all this. Buzek’s appointment became a certainty after Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister, withdrew his candidate, Mario Mauro. Naturally, Italy wants compensation. Berlusconi would probably be interested in one of the big Commission jobs for Italy, but Franco Frattini, his foreign minister, has other ideas. He would like to replace Solana as EU foreign policy chief.

The reaction in certain other EU member-states to Frattini’s ambitions is, to put it mildly, one of incredulity. No one has forgotten Frattini’s most recent diplomatic coup – a planned visit to Iran in May that went spectacularly wrong. Frattini had to cancel his trip at the last minute when President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad insisted on meeting him in a city where the Iranians had just announced the successful launch of a medium-range missile capable of hitting Israel. The visit would in any case have broken the EU’s policy of avoiding high-level contacts with Iran because of its nuclear programme.

So, it’s yes to Buzek – but no, grazie to Frattini.

Tags: Barroso, Brussels, EU Parliament, Frattini, Iran, Italy, Poland, Solana
Posted in EU Commission, EU Parliament, Foreign policy | Permalink

Brussels 2009 – the same as London 1641 or Versailles 1789?

June 23, 2009 9:34 am by Tony Barber

Is José Manuel Barroso’s reappointment as European Commission president in trouble? Probably not. But the jury is still out on whether he will secure formal approval from the European Parliament as early as mid-July. If he does not, it will be difficult to dispel the clouds of doubt that will linger over his future for two months or more.

Such uncertainty is hardly what the European Union needs at a moment when its banking system faces hundreds of billions of euros in losses this year and next, and when Germany and France, the eurozone’s two biggest economies, appear utterly at odds over when and how to rebalance their public finances.

The EU’s 27 national leaders decided unanimously at a Brussels summit last week to support Barroso’s reappointment. It was not a legally binding decision. They could, in theory, change it if there were massive resistance in the European Parliament.

But that’s certainly not Plan A. Leaders such as Fredrik Reinfeldt of Sweden, which is about to assume the EU’s rotating presidency, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel want the European Parliament to hold a vote next month to confirm Barroso for a second five-year term.

Barroso’s centre-right allies, known as the EPP, are the legislature’s largest political group. They are happy enough to hold an early vote. But they control only 264 of the assembly’s 736 seats. Three other groups – the socialists, centrist liberals and Greens – say they would prefer to delay the Barroso vote until September or October.

Barroso correctly sees that he must win an absolute majority – 369 votes or more – if he is not to suffer serious political injury. If we assume that he will pick up every single EPP vote, where is he going to get the other 105 votes from? He knows it would be fatal to turn for backing to the far-right, nationalist and anti-EU fringe elements in the legislature.

Barroso can probably count on three sources of support. First, there is the new conservative, “anti-federalist” group led by the UK Tories. It has 55 members (or even, as of Tuesday, 56 – a politician from Lithuania’s Polish minority appears interested in joining). Secondly, up to half of the 80-strong liberal group in the European Parliament can surely be coaxed into supporting Barroso. Finally, there are even some socialists – especially in Barroso’s native Portugal as well as Spain and the UK – who are inclined to back him. All told, that should see Barroso over the 369-vote mark.

But this is not the whole story, because even some of these parliamentarians may object to holding the vote in mid-July. In the end, this whole saga is less about Barroso’s leadership qualities than it is about the European Parliament’s desire to assert itself as one of the EU’s most powerful institutions.

“Brussels 2009″ doesn’t have quite the ring of 1641 in the English House of Commons, or 1789 in Versailles. But the situation contains some interesting dramatic potential, that’s for sure.

Tags: Barroso, Elections 2009, EU Parliament, European Union, Merkel, Sarkozy, Sweden
Posted in EU Parliament | Permalink

EU lawmakers slip up on a Barroso banana skin

June 17, 2009 1:30 pm by Tony Barber

Back in 1970 or so, there was a children’s Saturday morning TV show called “The Banana Splits”, in which some ludicrous character or other would frantically splutter “Hold the bus!” – always too late, for the bus would proceed on its way regardless. It is an irresistible temptation to compare the four Banana Splits of 40 years ago - Bingo, Fleegle, Drooper and Snorky – with certain members of today’s European Parliament.

For while the legislators are busy spluttering “Stop Barroso!”, they are saying it much too late. José Manuel Barroso is proceeding on his way to reappointment as European Commission president. In fact, the entire episode threatens to show the European Union in the worst possible light, after EU-wide elections to the European Parliament that, with their record low turnout, were themselves not exactly a ringing endorsement of the way the EU conducts its business.

Barroso is the only declared candidate for the Commission presidency, and he has the support of national political leaders across the political spectrum – centre-right, centre and centre-left. True, he is not seen as the most inspiring or visionary of Commission presidents. But that is, in a sense, exactly the quality that many national leaders are looking for – and the job is in their gift, subject to the parliament’s approval.

If socialist, liberal or Green politicians in the European Parliament wanted to prevent Barroso from getting a second term, they should have fought this battle before the elections to the assembly. Each should have rallied behind a candidate of their choice. But they did not. The socialists were too divided even to come up with a candidate of their own. The opportunity was lost. It was their own fault.

Now the socialists and Greens have the nerve to suggest that the EU’s national leaders would in some way be guilty of treating the parliament with disdain, if they were to nominate Barroso at the EU summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday and then pass on his name to the parliament for approval. But in truth, this is precisely the procedure set out under EU rules.

All that the average European citizen cares about is having a Commission president in office who gets on with his job. Squabbling and muscle-flexing among European Parliament politicians who, like the Banana Splits, have missed the bus is not of the slightest interest to anyone – except perhaps the EU’s critics, who will gleefully point out that the newly elected legislators appear to have learnt no lessons whatsoever from the recent election campaign.

Tags: Barroso, Elections 2009, EU Parliament
Posted in EU Commission, EU Parliament | Permalink

Food For Thought: Gordon Brown as the EU’s First Full-Time President?

June 15, 2009 2:49 pm by Tony Barber

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.

Tags: Barroso, Britain, European Union, Gordon Brown, Lisbon Treaty
Posted in EU Commission | Permalink

New Czech premier is a statistically significant man

June 10, 2009 2:47 pm by Tony Barber

Jan Fischer, the unassuming non-party technocrat who is holding the fort as Czech prime minister for the next few months, is getting his 15 minutes of fame on the world stage – but it’s certainly not going to his head. He was sitting in his Prague office today telling me about his preparations for next week’s European Union summit in Brussels – an event he will chair – and somehow his background as a humble statistician kept colouring the conversation.

For example, when I asked him whether most EU heads of government supported a legally binding decision to nominate José Manuel Barroso at the summit for a second term as European Commission president, he replied that it was “50-50 … as regards the sample of people I’ve had a chance to speak to”.

Since there are 27 national leaders in the EU, I did some sums and cautiously suggested that this meant he must have spoken to an even number of leaders, rather than an odd number – unless (I silently mused) the UK’s Gordon Brown or Ireland’s Brian Cowen had broken in two as a result of their recent domestic electoral disasters.

Sure enough, Fischer confirmed that he had so far spoken to six leaders around Europe. But what about that other burning question that surrounds contemporary Czech leaders?

Fischer, a former head of the Czech national statistics office, replaced Mirek Topolanek as premier – and it was only last week that Topolanek disclosed that he was one of the guests pictured in a state of extreme undress, though not distress, at the luxurious Sardinian villa of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

So has Fischer ever been to Sardinia? And if not, what, statistically speaking, are the chances that he may go in the near future? Alas, the interview was over before I could pop the question.

Tags: Barroso, Brussels, Czech Republic, Italy
Posted in Uncategorized | Permalink