By Alan Beattie, the FT’s world trade editor

Look, not my specialist subject, but here’s my eurocent’s-worth on the appointment of the Baroness High Representative and the Lord High Everything Else.

(Incidentally, I’d have stuck with the classic original song for this blog post title, but if there’s one thing Brussels isn’t short of, it’s lawyers.)

The biggest problem with these posts isn’t the final personnel decision, though that’s certainly in the top two. It’s that no matter who fills them, there’s no there there. Pick any important foreign policy question of the last twenty years - Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel/Palestine - and it’s clear that what you need for influence is one or all of:

1. veto power on the UN Security Council

2. troops you can send into battle (a shooting war, not peacekeeping)

3. foreign/military aid big enough to matter that you can use for political ends

The US and China, for example, have all three; Russia, the UK and France 1 and 2 (with possible 3 for Russia in its neighbourhood and France in francophone Africa). The EU president and high representative have none. EU aid is too slow to be used in this way, and in any case is rightly not supposed to be politicised. They will shuffle naked into the conference chamber.

There’s way too much chatter about personalities around today. You could have made Winston Churchill secretary-general of the League of Nations and it would still have failed. The personnel appointment might be a problem, but it’s not the main one.

Related reading:

Cathy Ashton: 10 things to know FT Westminster blog

Van Rompuy and Ashton: big enough for the big EU jobs? FT Brussels blog

Name a famous Belgian The Economist

Where we could have been this evening Jon Worth’s Euroblog

The new EU Julien Frisch, Watching Europe

By Chris Bryant, eastern Europe correspondent, in Berlin

When the idea was first mooted to topple a line of dominoes in the German capital to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, many traditionalists apparently scoffed.

But talking to the excited crowds at the Brandenburg Gate on Monday, it was apparent that the 1.5km row of painted domino stones has become an instant hit, whose symbolism is apparent to all.

The approximately 1,000 stones – each standing around 2.5m tall – were painted by local schoolchildren and now stand along the former path of the Berlin Wall between the Reichstag and Potsdamer Platz. Continue reading "How Berlin plans to avoid a “River of Fire” moment"

Gideon is away on book writing leave… but he has been back in touch about the following study from the European Council on Foreign Relations. He says it is “one of those rare things - a report on the transatlantic relationship that is actually worth reading.”

Here is an excerpt:

As EU leaders head to Washington for their transatlantic summit tomorrow, an unsentimental President Obama has already lost patience with Europe.  In a post-American world, the United States knows it needs effective partners.  At present, Europe lacks coherence and purpose. If Europe cannot step up, the US will look for other partners to do business with. Read the report here.

Related reading:

Summit-hungry Europeans flock to a bemused Washington FT Brussels blog
Obama - in depth news, comment and analysis, FT

By Geoff Dyer, the FT’s China bureau chief

China can do strange things to your politics. I know foreigners who purr about the efficiency of authoritarian bureaucracy and others who search Confucian texts for new political ideas. In my case, China has converted me to the importance of the European Union.

Sitting in Beijing, it is all too easy to feel that Europe is becoming irrelevant, as the US and a rising China stitch up the global agenda. The Chinese have become quite adept at playing one European government against another. When Beijing cancelled a summit with the EU last year to punish Nicolas Sarkozy for meeting the Dalai Lama, the response from other EU capitals was an awkward silence. The European Council on Foreign Relations claims Beijing treats the EU with “diplomatic contempt”. Continue reading "China has converted me to the importance of the EU"

The British foreign secretary spoke to my colleague George Parker about Afghanistan, Russia and the prospect of president Blair. Continue reading "FT video: David Miliband interview"

Poor Tony Blair – sabotaged by his own countryman. Just weeks ago,Mr Blair looked like the frontrunner to be president of the European Union. But now William Hague, Britain’s shadow foreign secretary, has let the rest of Europe know that the opposition Conservative party would regard his appointment as a “hostile gesture”. Since the Tories and Mr Hague are likely to be in government by the middle of next year, after a British general election, their views have real weight. Charles Grant, head of the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank, says: “On my travels around Europe I have found that Hague’s comments have made a huge impact.” Mr Blair’s candidacy has been badly damaged.

There is, of course, history between Mr Hague and Mr Blair. A decade ago, Mr Blair was prime minister of Britain and at the height of his powers, and Mr Hague was the leader of a struggling Tory party. Ten years on, both men have gone down in the world. Mr Blair is an elder-statesman for hire. Mr Hague has seen the Tory leadership pass to a younger, more charismatic man.

The remainder of this column can be read here. Please post comments below

At last! Ireland has passed the Lisbon treaty and now the European Union can move forward with its plan for world domination. Within months, the EU is likely to appoint a president and a foreign minister. Tony Blair is limbering up for a
run at the top job. A clutch of Swedish, Dutch and Belgian candidates are jostling for the post of foreign minister.

Fortified by its new foreign-policy structures, the Union is staking a claim to be taken seriously as a global superpower. David Miliband, Britain’s foreign secretary, says: “It shouldn’t be a G2 of the US and China. There should be a G3 with the European Union.”

But what happens in Brussels – or even in trilateral dealings between the US, China and Europe – is a sideshow. The real key to Europe’s global ambitions is the Group of 20.

The remainder of this article can be read here. Please post comments below.