The opinion was almost unanimous. Across the European Union, critics fulminated at the totally boring politicians chosen by the 27 member states to fill the new positions of President of the EU Governing Council and High Representative for Foreign Policy. At the top job, the new President-elect is Herman Van Rompuy, current Belgian prime minister and leader of a country where they dip their French fries in mayonnaise. The foreign policy post goes to Lady Catherine Ashton, Baroness of Upholland, the current EU trade commissioner, who has—count ‘em—zero years of experience as a diplomat.
Herman Van Rompuy. Photo by Luc Van Braekel
Media outlets in particular grumbled over their unfulfilled wish for a celebrity politician, who could have played the president’s role with newsworthy élan. The take-away was that this was yet another example of the drab, consensual politics that dominates the EU, and that such colorless figures cannot clear up the leadership muddle that the Lisbon treaty was meant to fix. Spain’s El País openly worried that these two “gray, unknowns” would compound the estrangement between EU citizens and their institutions. In the Nouvel Observateur, former French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing complained that the choice reflected “a limited ambition for Europe at a time of grand global dialogue… [Van Rompuy] is no European Washington.” And Gideon Rachman at the Financial Times compared the process of selection to a computer-dating program gone terribly wrong. “If the answer is Herman Van Rompuy and Cathy Ashton,” he fumed, “what the hell was the question?”
So much for Tony Blair, who was, until recently, assumed to be the front-runner for the new top post. (Though in reality, this was an idea that mainly fired up English-speaking imaginations. Most “Anglo-Saxons”, as the French weirdly call us, still don’t fully appreciate how roundly Europeans resent Blair for the role he played ginning up public support for the invasion of Iraq.)
For those readers who don’t follow EU politics with all the verve of a comparative government advanced placement student, two of the major changes introduced by the recently ratified Treaty of Lisbon were the creation of a “president” of the EU and also a head diplomat, who could speak for all the foreign ministers of Europe. Many feel that the European Union, which houses 500 million people and has the largest GDP in the world, punches well below its weight on the world stage. In practice, its leadership is diluted—divided between the larger countries of Europe, who individually and collectively don’t seem to have as much pull these days as presidents Obama and Hu.
To this end, it’s obvious Mr. Van Rompuy and Lady Ashton are no remedy; they are the sort of non-threatening backroom picks that the risk-averse European leadership seem to prefer. This is particularly true of Lady Ashton, who, with no foreign policy experience, got the job as a concession to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for abandoning the Blair bid. This is unfortunate, but such is the horse-trading that determines how most EU positions are divvied out—a far from ideal recruitment strategy.
However, before we get carried away bemoaning lost opportunities, it’s worth taking a closer look at the former Belgian prime minister’s new job description, because the job is not quite as presidential as it sounds. For the next two and a half years, it will be his responsibility to chair and steer the work of the European Council, and also to serve as its spokesman. Unlike Lady Ashton, who will head the newly formed European diplomatic corps, Mr. Van Rompuy will have no formal power, and very little administrative power. Mostly, his presence will ensure greater continuity on the council, which is made up of the leaders of Europe. His office will replace the old, rotating six-month presidency and the inevitable short-termism it fostered. Merkel and Sarkozy reportedly favored Van Rampuy for his reputation as a consensus-builder, which is probably wise, since persuasion is about the only power he’s going to have.
Some critics, however, have sought to portray European leaders as jealous of their own power. Parisian socialist deputy Jean-Christophe Cambadélis told le Nouvel Observateur:
“The hand of Sarkozy and Merkel in the choice of Van Rompuy and Ashton has achieved its goal: to render the European presidency and the High Representative for Foreign Policy banal… we cannot be but sorry.”
If indeed that was the goal—to safeguard the prerogatives of national leaders and their foreign ministers against a more assertive EU leadership—then the members may have inadvertently hit upon a wise choice. But in a broader sense, the decision of Sarkozy, Merkel and Co. reflects the emerging view that after a dizzying decade of enlargement and integration, the onus is on the EU now to demonstrate good governance. Considering the general queasiness about the Union’s democratic deficit the appointment of a swaggering, undemocratic spokesman as its president might have been unwise. It would likely have stoked the kind of popular revolt already seen in Ireland, France, and the Netherlands. Anyway, from a longer-term perspective, there really is something to be said for bland inaugural leaders.
Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’s invocation of George Washington is probably more apt than the former French President realizes; the thing is, he got the comparison wrong. Hype and hagiography aside, Washington was the essence of the bland, consensus leader. Arguably, the two most significant things that our first president did were 1) to listen to Alexander Hamilton and nationalize the war debts of the former colonies (which tied the states to the federal government financially and created a robust domestic financial market that kept us independent of English capital markets, something other fledgling American democracies failed to do), and 2) to step down after eight years, without trying to become an American dictator. Washington’s dignified (read: boring) inaugural presidency ensured that the office has always loomed larger than whoever holds it; we don’t constantly compare our current Commander in Chief with Washington.
The problem with charismatic founding leaders is that their personality exceeds the office. Assuming that Blair had succeeded, and that’s quite an assumption, then two and a half years from now, when he stepped down, the question wouldn’t be “who should be the next president” it would be “who can fill Blair’s shoes?” This is, to a certain extent, a flaw of the French Fifth republic: the French presidency was tailor-made for de Gaulle, and every president since has governed in his shadow.
Maybe it is just too early in the life of the EU to hang it with all the trappings of a super powerful nation state. It is not a military superpower; neither is it a nation state: it is a work in progress. Yet, as is typical of EU politics, pro-Europeans argue as if its very survival and relevance were at stake. This is emerging as one of the most predictable aspects of EU politics: every time a treaty is voted down or enlargement suffers a setback or an uncharismatic leader is appointed to a post, it’s as though the whole damn effort were under existential threat.
Imagine the Fins, the Poles and the Brits speaking as one. Truly, it may take a generation for a trans-European political culture to emerge. For now, the politics of consensus, gray and uninspiring though it is, is probably the only workable way to group the disparate voices of Europe into a single voice, and forge a common EU foreign policy. The notion that a charismatic leader could fast-forward this is probably wishful thinking.
In the meantime, we’ll have to make do with Caspar Van Milquetoast.
