In rejecting spitzenkandidaten, Macron has let the perfect be the enemy of the good

National leaders, led by Emmanuel Macron, have refused a European Parliament demand that citizens should select the next EU president. The reasons have more to do with institutional rivalries than citizens’ interests.

“Don’t count your spitzens before they hatch,” tweeted Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė ominously as she entered Friday’s summit of EU leaders in Brussels. 

The Lithuanian president was referring to the so-called ‘spitzenkandidaten’ process, used in the last European Parliament elections in 2014 for the first time to select the European Commission President as a result of the public vote. National leaders of the 27 future EU member states (that is, all except the UK) were meeting Friday to decide whether to use the process again in next year’s election.

One speed or two? Juncker challenges Macron's EU vision

In this week's podcast, we dissect President Juncker's State of the European Union speech and talk to journalist Soeren Kittel about next week's German election.

 

Juncker's Wallonia bypass could save Brexit

Next week the Commission is expected to outline a plan in which governments will no longer have veto power over most EU trade deals. It could be a game-changer for the Brexit negotiations.

One year ago, as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prepared to board a plane tp Brussels to sign a landmark free trade deal with the European Union, he had a bone to pick with some fellow Francophones 4km to the south of the EU capital.

The deal was done and all 28 EU national governments had agreed to it. But the tiny region of Wallonia, the French-speaking, politically far-left Southern part of Belgium, was threatening to wield a veto. A region of 3.5 million people was about to unilaterally kill the trade deal agreed by the other 509 million. 

The premier of Wallonia asked Trudeau to cancel the visit, saying it would be a "provocation" to do so while Wallonia had not yet given its assent. The Canadian PM cancelled his flight, but he was not pleased. "If, in a week or two, we see that Europe is unable to sign a progressive trade agreement with a country like Canada, well then with whom will Europe do business in the years to come?" he asked.

“Why are you still here?”

As they exit international bodies, the US and UK are refusing to give up their seats at the tables they plan to leave. The question is whether their international partners will let them get away with it.

This week, the difficult negotiations over the UK’s exit from the European Union began in earnest in Brussels. David Davis, the UK’s chief negotiator, squared off against Michel Barnier, his EU counterpart.

Davis called for both sides to “get down to business” for arranging a swift British exit from the EU. He then promptly went back to London, 60 minutes later. He gave no explanation for his own swift departure, which left the EU negotiators perplexed. Just days earlier, Barnier had warned the UK that it is is running out of time to negotiate its exit, which must be completed by March 2019. “The clock is ticking” he said sternly.

Is Trump pulling a Juncker with his cabinet picks?

While EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker's strategy was designed as a trap for national European capitals, it's hard to gauge whether there's any method to Trump's madness.

Last night on The Daily Show, host Trevor Noah came up with a theory behind the extreme hard-right cabinet appointments of Donald Trump.

"You know, sometimes I think Trump is trolling us, people,” he said. “It’s like the ultimate troll! Because you realize, every single person he’s picked for his cabinet wants to destroy the thing that they’ve been put in charge of."

Trump has appointed a man who hates the Environmental Protection Agency (and is even currently suing it) to run that same agency. He's appointed a fast food executive opposed to workers rights and the minimum wage as labor secretary. He's appointed a conspiracy-peddling alarmist as national security adviser. The list goes on.

No, the EU does not have 'five presidents'

How many Brits could name John Bercow, Mark Carney or George Osborne? Well these are the equivalents for three of the "five presidents" cited by Michael Gove in the Sky News debate.

During the live Brexit debate on Sky News last week, 'out' campaigner Michael Gove, the former UK minister for education, was taken to task by interviewer Faisal Islam.

Asked to back up his claims with hard facts, Gove deflected. Asked to name notable experts saying the UK would be economically better off outside Europe, he demurred. But he could tell he was on to a winner when he distracted from the questions by turning to the audience and asking them a question himself, "There are five presidents run the EU. Can you name them all?"

There was an awkward silence from the audience, and from Islam. No, it turns out, nobody could name them. Since then the Leave campaign has ran with this 'five presidents' line, and the British media has heralded it as an excellent point for the leave camp (The Guardian called it a "superb" moment for Gove in the debate).

There's only one problem - it's completely bogus. 

Just because there are a number of people with the title "president" in the European institutions does not make them all comparable to the "president" of the United States, France or Russia. But this is what Gove is implying.

"We Face an Aggressive Secular Attack"

The words above raised some eyebrows when they were bellowed yesterday at a conference at Georgetown University in Washington, but they weren’t from a fiery American evangelical – they were from former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. The same Tony Blair who is currently the bookies’ favourite to become the first “president of Europe”.

Continuing my look at the factors in the choice of the first person to take up the President of the European Council position, I thought I'd look at how these comments yesterday might affect the debate. Considering he is currently lobbying to be the symbolic leader of largely secular Europe, the speech seems remarkably ill-timed in its vitriolic attack on atheism (full text of the speach here). According to the Times, Blair said of the world’s religions:

“We face an aggressive secular attack from without. We face the threat of extremism from within.” Arguing that there was “no hope” from atheists who scorn God, he said the best way to confront the secularist agenda was for all faiths to unite against it. “Those who scorn God and those who do violence in God’s name, both represent views of religion. But both offer no hope for faith in the twenty first century.”

Apparently to Blair, Atheists and terrorists are two sides of the same coin. To call the comments incendiary is an understatement, and they may well come up during the difficult deliberations over the next month over who should take up the position of Europe’s first symbolic “president”. And it certainly won’t help Blair with secular Europeans that his speech was delivered in ultra-religious America.

Indeed it is Blair’s ties with America that are proving the biggest stumbling block to his candidacy, particularly his relationship with former President George W. Bush. The European left already reviles him for tearing Europe apart in 2003 by being an unquestioning defender of the Iraq war.

For me personally, there is just no way I could support someone for this position who said those words above. So my hesitation is over, I can unequivocally say that putting Tony Blair in that position would be a bad move for Europe, and it would not be worth the celebrity and energy he would bring to the role.

Contrary to the conclusions already drawn by the British tabloid media, I actually don’t even think it is very likely he will get the position. As the Economist’s Charlemagne column points out today, the fact that Tony Blair's name has been connected with this position for two years now actually works against him, as front-runners rarely secure euro-jobs in the end. And the reasons for various and disparate groups to oppose him are too high in number to see how he could overcome them easily. Small states don’t want to see the position go to anyone from the big three. The left hates him for the Iraq War, his abandonment of socialism to win UK elections and his sudden conversion to aggressive religiosity. The continental right is at best lukewarm toward him and at worst jealous of his celebrity. The British right reviles him. Who exactly is supporting this man?

So who am I backing? He may not be famous or charismatic, but my hopes are being placed in Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker. As leader of the Eurozone finance ministers he is keenly placed to help Europe through the recovery and to put in place new safeguards and regulatory regimes to prevent another crisis. Of course there are significant hurdles for him to overcome as well. Both Labour and the Tories hate him for his unabashed federalism, and Sarkozy reportedly thinks he bungled the start of the financial crisis.

So even though I was on the fence, there’s just no way I can hold my nose and cast my lot for Blair after hearing what he said in Washington yesterday, no matter how much his celebrity would give the EU some much-needed glamour and cache. Juncker may not be a Barack Obama, but given the disillusion many American progressives are now feeling about that presidency across the pond, maybe celebrity presidencies aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

President Tony Blair?

It looks like discussion around Tony Blair becoming the first “President of Europe” is heating up. According to the BBC, Blair is now discussing the prospect with current British prime minister Gordon Brown.

The network is claiming there are forces in the prime minister’s office who are actively encouraging such an idea. It is thought that Blair and Brown are discussing the pros and cons of such a move, and Brown is waiting for Blair’s green light before he voices his support for the idea, which would signal that Blair is actively campaigning for the job.

Blair’s recent activity suggests that he is leaning in that direction. Last month he delivered a speech to Sarkozy’s UMP party conference – in French! Sarkozy has in turn expressed his desire for Blair to take the job.