The World

It has long been apparent that presidents of the European Commission secretly aspire to being treated like presidents of the US. I remember being present in the Commission press room, when Romano Prodi – the Commission president who preceded José Manuel Barroso – came to speak to the journalists. Prodi’s press secretary, presumably acting under instructions, announced loudly – “Ladies and Gentlemen, the president.” I was sitting in the front row and burst out laughing, and got a dirty look for my pains. I really wasn’t trying to be rude. It was just a genuinely ludicrous moment.

Since then – and despite the growing turmoil within the EU and the emergence of a rival EU president in the form of Herman Van Rompuy (surely, only a matter of time before he moves to Constantinople?) – the Commission president has stuck doggedly to his campaign to be regarded as the equal of that man in the White House.

The latest sign was the rebranding of today’s annual speech to the European parliament as a “state of the union address.” What Barroso actually had to say was largely unremarkable - and mercifully lacked the grandiloquence of the American version. An attempt to ensure a full house by fining MEPs who skipped the occasion was dropped without affecting attendance too disastrously.

So the next question is, what further steps should be taken to satisfy the Commission president’s yearning to be a Euro-Obama. I can think of two obvious and cost effective moves. First, they should plant a rose garden on the roof of the Berlaymont. Second, Barroso needs to preceded by music before entering a room. Getting a military band to play “Hail to the Chief” would be too obviously derivative. But how about having a group of school-children yodelling “Ode to Joy”?