EU Heads of Government Name 1st Full-time President
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Related subjects: Diplomacy & Politics, Documents & Treaties, Europe, European Union, Global, Rights & Freedoms, The Vote, United Kingdom Comments Off
Despite months, even years, of speculation the job would go to the former 2.5-term British prime minister, Tony Blair, the European Union has named Belgium’s new multilingual, largely unknown Flemish prime minister, Herman Van Rompuy, its first full-time president. Van Rompuy’s role will be daunting and complex, as he will be the public face of a 27-nation bloc whose “unity” sometimes seems more a matter of legal technicality than of fact.
Statements from various heads of state suggest Van Rompuy is seen as a consensus-builder, someone who is neither polarizing nor part of a Euro-skeptic (anti-EU-integration) politics, someone who will be seen less as an intrusive, high-profile politico and more as a dedicated tactician aiming to help build a stronger EU, through cooperation with national governments.
He comes to office very shortly after the controversial Lisbon Treaty was ratified and became binding law for all 27 member states. Van Rompuy will now preside over a complicated system that splits executive power between a kind of executive council and the heads of state of EU member states. It is widely accepted by political theorists and EU legal experts that the full-time presidency has yet to be adequately defined and Van Rompuy may face constant pressures as he seeks to fill out the role of central executive.
In the short run, his role will clearly be to ensure cooperation among member states. There will be pressure on him to show leadership at the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change in December and to help shape a viable joint foreign policy. His chief foreign policy minister was also named during the session that chose him for the presidency: the current UK Trade Commissioner, Lady Ashton.
Critics say Lady Ashton is a potentially risky choice, as she has never held elective office and has no top-level foreign policy experience. But the EU leaders that selected her appear to believe her role, like Mr. Van Rompuy’s, will be more heavily focused on building consensus among member states and fashioning a policy that reflects the direction of national governments.
For some in Europe, this moment brings more than a challenge: it brings the risk of hyper-concentration of power in centralized decision-making institutions that are not entirely or directly accountable to European voters. But EU national leaders have argued the current system will protect national sovereignty and so give voters more control, not less, over the direction of Europe.
Herman Van Rompuy is the first-term Belgian prime minister and a “center-right” Christian Democrat. He is of the Flemish minority and is multilingual, a quality many in Europe believe is key to understanding the complex cultural politics, which needs attention, understanding and a delicate touch, at all turns. In an age when the EU is reducing the mandatory publication of every EU-related document in every EU language to just a handful of “major languages”, reserving the direct translation for documents of local interest, Van Rompuy’s selection is a potential nod to those who fear the EU’s mounting integration will bring about homogenization and the erosion of cultural difference.
One commentary, in the Financial Times of London, suggested the selection of Rompuy was intended to reassure smaller nations and less visible populations, while Lady Ashton’s selection reminds big powers they are not out of fashion and will have a place in the first full-time executive cabinet. It’s a sound interpretation, as balancing these interests is one of the primary persistent needs of any EU-wide endeavor.
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