EU High Representative, you spoil us. Image: Presseurop, T Moustafa

EU top diplomat, a much better job

With cross the board ratification of the Lisbon treaty imminent, Con Coughlin in the Daily Telegraph points out that even with Tony Blair as first EU president, the role will be largely ceremonial. Real power will be concentrated in the hands of the High Representative for foreign and security policy.

Published on 12 October 2009 at 09:33
EU High Representative, you spoil us. Image: Presseurop, T Moustafa

If you think the Foreign Office is useless at the moment, just wait until the EU gets its way and sets up a "High Representative" for foreign and security policy – or a foreign minister, to you and me.

The FCO certainly has many failings, from its strange obsession with the EU's unfathomable bureaucracy to its barely concealed bias towards brutal Arab autocracies. But at least it's on our side. Whether you're an inebriated Brit caught indulging in illicit sexual activity on a beach in Dubai, or an adventurous tourist abducted in central Africa, Her Majesty's diplomatic service can usually be relied upon to come to the rescue. The best officers on our diplomatic staff work tirelessly for our country's interests, whether it is drafting hard-hitting Security Council resolutions on sanctions against Iran, or making sure that Britain is looked upon favourably by the latest resident of the White House.

But now, here comes Brussels. As the Lisbon Treaty edges ever closer to formal ratification by all 27 EU member states, much of the attention has focused on whether Tony Blair will succeed in his somewhat dubious ambition to become the EU's first president. Until a few months ago, he looked to be a shoo-in, having managed to secure the backing of both Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel. Read full article in the Daily Telegraph...

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Give Europe a face

What is the main problem with the Treaty of Lisbon? As any fledgling journalist will tell you, if you want to address an issue, the best thing to do is illustrate the point with a story about a particular person. But the European Union lacks a face upon which to hang a story. German reunification is personified by ex-chancellor Helmut Kohl, West German postwar reconstruction and the “economic miracle” by Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard, respectively. The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia is associated with Václav Havel, while over in Poland, Lech Wałęsa personifies the collapse of communism. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, for their part, incarnate the conservative revolution, whilst the name Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev evokes the stagnation of communism. This might explain why more and more Europeans have the sense something is missing in the integration process: they can’t put a face to it. The European Union is a remote entity, anonymous and well paid, somewhere in the glass palaces around Schuman Roundabout in Brussels. The EU lacks a face. It also lacks the thrust of a narrative. And we would be sorely mistaken to believe that could all be changed by appointing Tony Blair or anyone else president of the European Council. In fact, nothing will change until Europeans themselves elect their own president and see in him or her the bearer of the European narrative.

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