'Good socialist' sought for EU foreign top job[fr][de] 

José Manuel Barroso famously said that there are 'good socialists and bad socialists', when, during his grilling in the European Parliament before securing a second term as Commission president, the Parliament's centre-left group insisted on obtaining the EU foreign affairs minister job envisaged under the draft Lisbon Treaty (EurActiv 10/09/09).

Barroso's statement alluded to the fact that the socialists failed to name any candidates for the position, and he insisted that candidates eventually proposed by the left would not be automatically given the job simply by virtue of being a socialist. 

Consequently, the European left's strategy has been to push strongly for a centre-left politician to be given the new job of High Representative (HR) for Foreign Affairs, in part capitalising on the good record of Javier Solana, a Spanish socialist, as foreign policy chief. 

Such a scenario, pundits say, also fits the ambitions of the European centre-right, which, given its current domination of the EU political landscape, would insist on a package whereby one of their high-ranking politicians would take the Council president job.

Indeed, this point was further emphasised at last week's meeting of the European Ideas Network (EIN), the centre-right's pan-European think-tank. Rumours in the corridors of the EIN's meeting in Austria, overheard by EurActiv, confirmed that the centre-right does want the presidency, mainly for prestige reasons.

In terms of institutional logic, there are two reasons why it would make much more sense to have a centre-right politician chairing the Council, and a centre-left personality as High Representative (HR), Antonio Missiroli, a director at Brussels think-tank the European Policy Centre (EPC), told EurActiv. 

"If you look at the political balance of the European Council, it is overwhelmingly centre-right, so what would be the logic of having a socialist chairing that?" he argued. 

As the HR will also be a vice-president of the European Commission, having a socialist in this seat would also improve the political balance in the new college of commissioners – a positive outcome given that the EU executive "works best when it is as representative as possible of political families and realities across the European Union," Missiroli concluded.  

A high-ranking socialist source told EurActiv that many on the centre-left want this result, which "ultimately is in the interest of a balanced Europe". 

Such an outcome, of course, would put to bed once and for all Tony Blair's chances of becoming Council president. Indeed, as reported by EurActiv, anti-Blair forces across Europe have been coalescing in recent weeks (EurActiv 13/10/09). 

To make matters worse for Blair, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who vacillates between strong and weak support for the former British PM and whose backing would be key for his appointment, last week told Le Figaro that Blair was opposed by many across the EU because of Britain's Euroscepticism.

Indeed, the consensus at the EIN seemed to indicate that Blair was increasingly "out of the picture".

Weak Council president, strong Barroso? 

The big argument around the president job centres on whether the position should be given to a high-profile personality like Blair, who would give the job a global stature and influence, or whether it should be considered a more low-key chairperson role. 

Of late, a growing number of Europe’s centre-right bigwigs have been favouring the latter option, including the Polish government, which according to EurActiv Poland foresees the new president as a secretary general-type figure who will chair EU summits and coordinate the daily work of the Council, without taking any strategic decisions. Current EU presidency holder Sweden, too, has expressed its preference for this scenario. 

Speaking to EurActiv, German centre-right MEP Elmar Brok echoed this view, arguing that from his perspective, "the task of the Council president should be to chair and prepare the European Council". He singled out Jean-Claude Juncker as one of the "many valuable" centre-right candidates for the job. 

This outcome would arguably provide a further boon to reappointed European Commission President José Manuel Barroso. 

A comparatively weaker Council president would not become a "global competitor" to Barroso, who many experts predict will seek a stronger presence on the world stage following his successful reappointment campaign. As Missiroli observes, Barroso's prominence would rise, because the HR, despite the global influence he/she may command, will "still be Barroso's number two". 

Personality politics 

However, all these eventualities remain speculative until real names are put on the table. While the left-right game of cat-and-mouse intensifies, the final deal will ultimately hinge on the stature of the personalities proposed. 

British Liberal MEP Andrew Duff, a noted expert on the Lisbon Treaty, told EurActiv that "one has to see this as a package, and the first job that needs to be filled isn't the president job, but the more important HR job. And it isn't easy to find a person with the calibre and experience to do that at present, and I also think the party affiliation of that person is of secondary importance to their personal stature and calibre". 

The high-ranking centre-left source told EurActiv that "the Socialist family has a number of well-qualified names" for the HR job, though he would not name names. Speculation has been mounting that if their Blair strategy fails, the British Labour party may push to have current UK Foreign Minister David Miliband installed as HR. Rumours also abound in France that Sarkozy may push for former centre-left Minister of Foreign Affairs Hubert Védrine. 

Echoing Barroso's "famous words", Duff said: "If the left wants the HR job, then that obligates them to come up with credible candidates." 

"I can't think of a socialist politician who springs to mind as being both capable and popular," he added, concluding that "Barroso's quite correct to say that he's not going to do anything until he gets proposals for a foreign minister".