| Author | Message | | Diceros | | Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 12:32 pm Post subject: |
| ( Following the matter of EU Presidency.).
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I can see it now: 'President Blair'
A new EU post is so perfectly suited to the former PM that it makes you wince Thursday, 18 June 2009
To the first reader to answer the question, "Who is the President of the European Council?" without cheating, I promise to pay the sum of £10,000. Due to budgetary constraints, I should add, the prize will be paid in Monopoly money. But knowledge is its own reward, so well done anyone who shrieked: "Durrhh, what with the Czechs' holding the rotating presidency it must be Jan Fischer!"
•World Focus: A second term for Barroso is hardly a sign of approval
Let the rest of you be consoled that now more than ever ignorance is bliss, and here's why. There is a very fair chance that before this year is out we will all know the name of President of Europe, as the post will be restyled... and that it will be Mr Tony Blair.
There are several obstacles in what Mr T, with his Middle East peacemaker's hat on, would call the road map. For one thing, the creation of this post, with its 30-month term, depends on the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty that creates it. This in turn relies on the Irish reversing their decision and voting for the Treaty in October.
The other minor problem is that the 27 EU governments would have to elect him, by qualified majority, in December. Clearly some (the sane ones, perhaps) won't be keen, or will be keener on others. Should Angela Merkel lose the German election later this year, for example, Europe's outstanding leader should walk it.
And yet, and yet... the first and only reliable rule of contemporary geopolitical life is that what Mr Blair wants, Mr Blair gets. And that even when he gets what he didn't want, such as being turfed out of No 10 ahead of schedule, it turns out to be exactly what he should have wanted all along.
So it was that the great peacock charlatan of global politics was forced to flee just before the economic and political fires he helped set caught ablaze.
Had he served that promised full term, he'd have been ruined by the economic and expenses calamities that have rendered the man who removed him from office a prisoner of ... well, effectively of Mr Blair.
For months and months, the mystery of why he keeps sparing Gordon Brown has driven me mad. It's perfect role reversal, of course, because for years it was Brown who had Blair at his mercy and didn't strike. But that was because he's yellow through and through. Mr Blair, whatever else he may be, is no coward. And even if he was, what did he have to lose? All he had to do last July, from the safe remove of the plutocrat's yacht or villa he was poncing off at the time, was encourage his loyalists in Cabinet to quit, and Gordon would have been dialing Pickford's.
Instead he told them to stick around, and colluded in (quite possibly brokered) the sensational recall of Peter Mandelson that avoided terminal civil war. Once again a fortnight ago, the merest whisper in David Miliband's ear would have provoked the fatal resignation. Once again Mr Blair gazed down on a prostate and bleeding Gordon, and defied the bloodthirsty crowd by raising the imperial thumb rather than lowering it.
All right, it would have looked a bit eye-for-an-eye had he done unto Gordon what Gordon eventually did unto him. But then there's always been more of Moses than Jesus about this remarkable man of God; and besides, he'd merrily have convinced himself that he was only protecting the party he professes to love by removing a grotesque electoral liability. It would even, for once, have been the truth.
Since Mr Blair acts solely out of pure self-interest, a conspiracy theory for this inaction presents itself. The only direct advantage I can see for him in Gordon's survival is that his hopes of becoming President of Europe depend on it. It's not just that Gordon's downfall would have necessitated a general election, when the arrival of a new British PM as opportunistically Europhobic as David Cameron (however relaxed he is reported to be about a President Blair) would be lethal to the prospects of an old one. It's that those prospects also depend on Lord Mandelson remaining the de facto prime minister (deputy, schmeputy; he's the guv'nor now) in December, and in a position of maximum strength from which to use his political gifts and reassuring status as a pro-Euro ex-Commissioner to schmooze dubious EU leaders into the Mr Tony camp.
Mandy, meanwhile, will require a glamorous new job himself this time next year, and what could be more enticing than returning to Brussels as the President's Chief of Staff? Or better still, given that ancient ambition to become Foreign Secretary, as the President's Special Emissary to the Whole Wide World?
The job is so perfectly tailored for Mr Blair, it makes you wince. Its duties and powers are so ill-defined that it will be as large or as small as the first incumbent can make it. Knowing Mr Blair, we may expect him to parlay it into something huge, or at least with the appearance of hugeness. Even if denied the influence over European policy on trade and defence for which he's already lobbied, there'd be a lot of swanking to be swanked.
Cherie won't like the bar on a private jet, but even crumby old 777s can get you to Washington in relative comfort. That lucrative American market would rejoice to see him addressing Congress again, with brilliantly delivered vacuous drivel about the need to create a strong Euro-American alliance in the causes of free trade and world peace. Imagine them back at Camp David (can he still squeeze into those ball-crushing denims?) schmoozing the Obamas on equal honorific terms as Europe's First Couple.
No wonder he craves this job, and no wonder she hasn't vetoed it, whatever the cost in investment banking and public speaking income postponed. His work for the Quartet in settling those trifling local difficulties in the Middle East is almost done, as the serenity in Tehran underlines. It's time to move on and up. It's time for that Barbra Streisand, positively final comeback tour. It's time for this West Wing fanatic to achieve the fondest of fantasies, and be addressed as Mr President by all.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/matthew-norman/matthew-norman-i-can-see-it-now-president-blair-1707848.html
cheers. | |  | | ktholcombe | | Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 4:21 am Post subject: |
| EU tiptoes round Lisbon quicksands
By Laurence Peter
BBC News, Brussels
EU leaders will breathe a sigh of relief that the Lisbon Treaty will not - for now at least - get them bogged down in institutional wrangling again.
Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen appears satisfied that the deal on an EU protocol, as well as a legally binding EU decision, will be enough to reassure Irish voters and deliver a "Yes" to Lisbon in a second referendum. He expects the Republic of Ireland to be ready for the vote in early October.
These EU legal instruments spell out that Lisbon will not affect Irish sovereignty over military neutrality, taxation and anti-abortion policy.
The Irish "No" to Lisbon, just over a year ago, pushed back the timetable for the treaty to take effect, despite years of negotiations.
EU leaders - especially the Swedes, who are poised to assume the EU presidency - want Lisbon because they say the 27-nation bloc's current institutions are creaking under the strain of enlargement.
Opponents say Lisbon is just the defunct EU constitution repackaged and see it as a Trojan horse for EU domination over national authorities.
Barroso eyes new term
The big fear at this summit was that the protocol demanded by the Irish could reopen the whole Lisbon ratification debate.
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown insists that the additional protocol is Ireland-specific, "doesn't change the relationship between the EU and nation states" and will not affect the Lisbon Treaty itself.
The happiest leader at this summit appeared to be Jose Manuel Barroso, the veteran Portuguese politician who got unanimous backing for a new five-year term as European Commission president.
His passion for the European project appears undimmed by the low turnout and lacklustre campaigning that characterised the European elections.
"Europe has to be a cross-party project," he said, all too aware that some parties in the European Parliament are lukewarm or even hostile towards his candidacy.
One of his immediate priorities will be to deliver new legislation on financial supervision, now that EU leaders have agreed on the framework.
Mr Brown says the deal is good for the City of London and "UK taxpayers will be protected".
Avoiding another Iceland
The UK persuaded its EU partners that national authorities should have the final say if a financial firm - be it a bank, insurance company or pension fund - needs rescuing.
The fact that UK taxpayers took a hit when Icelandic banks collapsed convinced the UK government that tighter cross-border supervision was necessary.
But the UK was also anxious to safeguard the City of London's regulatory powers, and to prevent the eurozone muscling in. It appears to have achieved that, with the agreement that European supervisors' decisions "should not impinge in any way on the fiscal responsibilities of member states".
The deal does promise that European supervisors will have "binding and proportionate decision-making powers" to resolve disputes. But it is not yet clear whether their authority would be enough to compel a government to rescue a firm or compensate taxpayers.
The EU was anxious to show leadership on this issue, amid widespread anger that a US bad loans crisis had such a damaging impact on Europe.
There was also the fact that this week the Obama administration unveiled the biggest overhaul of US financial regulation since the 1930s Great Depression.
Turning to international relations, the leaders condemned the Burmese authorities' detention of democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi, in a message timed for her 64th birthday. They warned of "additional targeted measures" if Burma failed to release political prisoners.
There were some tough words for Iran too, with Mr Brown deploring the post-election street violence there and restrictions on free speech.
The Czech Republic, now handing over the EU presidency to Sweden, has had some diplomatic embarrassments this year but this summit went relatively smoothly.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/8110025.stm
Published: 2009/06/19 16:44:54 GMT
© BBC MMIX | | | | Anglo Thug | | Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 8:06 am Post subject: |
| | Quote: | | The happiest leader at this summit appeared to be Jose Manuel Barroso, the veteran Portuguese politician who got unanimous backing for a new five-year term as European Commission president. |
Nice one! Our new monarch is the old monarch and our rights in these affairs have become traditional, to say the least. And the Irish guy is smoothing the way for another round of representative railroading. All's well, so I might as well get back to blasting (metaphorically for now) Iran's fucked up system where people don't get a say in their own affairs.
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