A fascinating opinion piece on Europe by Lord Mandelson in this morning’s FT. It should be read through the prism of the business secretary’s supposedly frustrated attempts to become either a] UK foreign secretary or b] Europe’s high representative for foreign affairs.
The paragraphs that jump out are:
1] “Some commentators felt that the EU’s choices for its new president and high representative for foreign affairs lacked this kind of continental ambition. Herman Van Rompuy and Lady Ashton will no doubt aim* to prove them wrong.
translation: Cathy Ashton is a bit of a lightweight compared to me
2] “This makes the EU’s strategy for jobs and growth and the distribution of the big economic portfolios in the next European Commission critically important …..political suspicion of globalisation remains strong in Europe….there will be pressure to turn the imperatives of recovery into arguments for subsidising or protecting jobs and industries that are losing their viability. It will need to be tactfully but firmly resisted.”
translation: Please don’t let the French get the job of internal market commissioner – the key financial job in Brussels
Gary Gibbon at Channel 4 has some similar thoughts on the matter.
* my emphasis in italics
Jim Pickard
Kiran Stacey
