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For a brief period last week it looked as if Tony Blair might pull it off. The argument of his supporters that Europe needed a big personality as president who could “stop the traffic in Beijing” seemed to be gaining traction. Europe’s lack of a unified foreign policy made him seem even more attractive. Only through Mr Blair’s relentless chutzpah and indefatigable belief in his powers of persuasion might a disparate group of nation states appear to present a united front. President Barack Obama and China’s Hu Jintao might indeed take note. Or so the thinking went.
This weekend that dream seemed to be crumbling, although Mr Blair has refused to abandon hope just yet. It appears that a powerful group has coalesced in opposition to the former prime minister. One of the most telling interventions came from William Hague, who has made it clear that a Blair presidency would antagonise a Conservative party on the brink of power. The views of the shadow foreign secretary, powerfully expressed to ambassadors at a lunch at the Swedish embassy last month, were taken seriously in European capitals. It underlined the danger of British party politics disrupting European foreign affairs just as the union was taking a big step into the unknown.
Then, of course, there was the intervention of David Miliband and Gordon Brown as cheerleaders. Did the prime minister go into battle on behalf of his old “frenemy” when he knew the cause was lost? Did that harden opposition and ensure the candidature was doomed? But Mr Blair had perhaps already made too many enemies in Europe when he was prime minister. Much has been made of his role in the divisive Iraq war and Britain’s exclusion from the euro. But petty politics, too, has played its part. Smaller European states have resented Britain’s vetoing of appointments of Belgian and other leaders. Nor has it ever been clear that Chancellor Angela Merkel had any time for Mr Blair as president. She seems to have swung President Nicolas Sarkozy behind her view that the post should go to someone from a small country and a right of centre party. The role of foreign policy chief would thus go, as is the European way, to the left of centre, opening a route for Mr Miliband.
If Mr Blair fails to get the job, it can only be a good thing. Although he would bring to it attractive traits, Europe is not ready for a charismatic president. This role is unelected and indeed unwanted by many Europeans and Mr Blair would make the job more significant than it merits. He would relish being a world figure leading an entity of nearly 500m people, backed by all its paraphernalia of bureaucracy and embassies. The trouble is that many European Union countries do not speak with one voice when it comes to foreign policy. Europe has been unable to agree on several important foreign policy issues, with clear divisions over the invasion of Iraq and intervention in the former Yugoslavia. Even when it has agreed (under a Nato umbrella) to intervene in Afghanistan, the discord over troop numbers has put serious strains on the alliance.
Mr Blair might have been successful in smoothing some of those issues, but it is not what we want from an unelected official. It is right that democracies should represent the views of their citizens and not of a powerful bureaucracy, even if they disagree with other countries in the EU. Europe is not a federal state with a united foreign policy — and for good reason. If it has to have a president, he or she should be bland enough not to cause a traffic jam in Basingstoke or Baden-Baden.
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