It is political appointment season in the European Union. José Manuel Barroso is fighting for a second term as president of the European Commission. Tony Blair, meanwhile, has emerged as the front-runner for the yet-to-be-created job as the first permanent president of the European Council. I can see why some might want Mr Barroso or Mr Blair in those roles. After all, the EU has a history of strange appointments. What I just cannot see is how anybody in their right mind could opt for the two simultaneously.
Mr Blair’s chances look much better than is widely believed. The UK backs him. Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, would probably add his support, as would Silvio Berlusconi and José Luis Zapatero, the prime ministers of Italy and Spain. Mr Blair is popular in large parts of central and eastern Europe, and in Europe’s northern and western fringes. There are dissenters but Mr Blair would only require a qualified majority under the Lisbon treaty, which needs to be ratified before this job can exist. If it is, nobody will have a veto here.
But the combination of Mr Blair and Mr Barroso in the EU’s top two positions would be extraordinary. First, they both actively supported the invasion of Iraq, as did Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former Danish prime minister who is about to take over as secretary-general of Nato. To say that this combination of European leaders does not truly reflect the diversity of European opinion would be an understatement.
Second – and for me this is a more important argument – Mr Blair is not the kind of politician who can act as a counterbalance to Mr Barroso, who has been unable to fill the EU’s leadership vacuum. Mr Blair, for all his political qualities and purportedly pro-European views, has never been a comfortable operator on the EU stage. The European Council, the grouping of 27 heads of state and government, is a hugely complex political construction that a Metternich or a Talleyrand would struggle to deal with. Mr Blair is not a politician who relishes the nitty-gritty of technical disputes in areas such as fishing quotas.
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