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With the usual hilarity that surrounds most things to do with EU Summits, over dinner and behind closed doors, the new EU President and High Representative (Foreign Minister), were chosen and announced to a waiting world… Rompuy and Aston…Who, what, do either clean sinks better than Dettol ?

Belgian Prime Minister, Herman van Rompuy is the EU President which is quite funny because after the last Belgium General Election, no one could form a Government for months and months but I suppose they must have done so in the end to have a PM. The High Representative is a British Quango person called Baroness Ashton but the point is, nobody has heard of either of them and thereby hangs a tale….

Looking Over the Precipice…

From when it all started with the European Constitution, through to the Lisbon Treaty, the whole exercise has taken about 8 years. In the early years there was lots of “Europe Speaking with One Voice” the agenda and the goal was a Federal EU, of that there can be no doubt. Against this background, a Flag, Anthem (Ode to Joy), a powerful President and Foreign Minister were ‘expected’ and indeed ‘fervently desired’ by all good Federalists.

Three things eroded this foolish dream – Time it took too long and after the French and Dutch rejection of the original document, enthusiasm noticeably drained away.

The Iraq War where it became obvious that the majority of EU citizens lacked the stomach to fight or see their young killed in military service, the EU is a ‘Mistress’ for the good times only, forget “…in sickness and in health…” only economic health matters to this Tart.

Finally, the Global Economic Crisis which bought home quite sharply that the EU was neither big enough nor strong enough to insulate itself from the consequences of such events, we all live in a very joined up and interdependent world now.

The Cherie on the Cake

It has been very amusing to watch the proposed candidature of Tony Blair for the post of EU President and although personally I would have hated for him to get the job, I am glad his hat was in the ring as it were because it has served the whole of Europe well by being there.

Love him or loath him, the reality is that Blair is a “Big Name Brand” in terms of the global political community, if the EU wanted to create a “Big Picture of a Confident and Totally Together Europe” then Blair was the perfect candidate and the Iraq War mattered little in that calculation except in positive terms. To be honest and although more “acceptable” to some EU Leaders though less potent internationally another ‘choice’ would have been Angela Merkel if she had lost the recent German Elections.

In the end the EU Leaders ‘ran away’ from their original intentions as they realised that an “EU Up for the Job” just didn’t exist so “nameless functionaries” such as the two chosen were the only way to go, neither will make an ‘impact’ but also, neither will require the EU ‘To Do Anything’ much either, the “Presidents Job” has degenerated into a Civil Service, deck chair moving job.

Why Blair ?

If you leave aside ‘personalities and intellect’ where he may have loads of the former but precious little of the latter there are some specific reasons why for a Federal EU he would have been the ‘perfect’ EU President. “Nations” consist only of two things, economic and military potential, lack either and you are “Not a Nation”, Blair had ‘taken the UK to war’ several times, psychologically he was prepared to be ‘muscular’ so, if the EU wanted to pursue a “Federal Agenda”, this was the ‘only game in town’ but they ‘blinked’ .

Conclusion

Appointing two “No Name People Civil Servants” to these posts demonstrates the end of “Federalism” and acceptance that at best, the EU is just a “Trade Block” and not a political identity so, that is a GOOD but as a way forward economically rather than politically, probably sounds the ‘Death Nell of the EU’.

For the moment, the British Foreign Office can take a pat on the back for a job well done, the EU expanded beyond all possibility of control by France and Germany and confusion reigns supreme – excellent !