The battle for the Union's soul

“Europe so loves to celebrate haggling for posts because it provides spectacle for the people and a bloodless sport for politicians”, writes Paweł Świeboda, director at the Centre for European Strategy demosEuropa in Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza. It took several weeks, if not months, of strenuous backstage wheeling and dealing for José Manuel Barroso to finally clinch his second term at the helm of the European Commission. It's ironic that a suspicious electorate has scuppered the EU constitution project on a number of occasions and yet these less than transparent procedures are still maintained, complains Świeboda. Nevertheless, apparent chaos at the time of choosing EU leaders obscures the fact that an intense struggle is going on for the EU's soul. A struggle which will end either with the larger states tearing the Union apart or EU institutions coming out bruised but stronger.