Time to Strike
Posted by mariobilo on June 27, 2010
On the 1st of July 2010 the European Presidency will travel from Spain to Belgium, a country which is just after elections, without a government and with some signs of a desperate desire not to be a single state anymore. This same Belgium, however, has all the potential to finally show that Europe has one phone line(paraphrasing the famous line of Henry Kissinger).
When the European Presidency was given to Spain on the 1st of January 2010, the Spanish administration was very well prepared. In fact they were over-prepared. The Spaniards were expecting to be given presidency of the EU under the Nice Treaty conditions, meaning that their Prime Minister would be the President of the European Council and their foreign affairs minister would be the High Representative of the EU for foreign affairs. Alas, quite unexpectedly quickly the Lisbon Treaty was finally fully ratified and entered into force one month before the Spanish presidency, resulting in an appointed President of the European Council and appointed High Representative. In order not to offend Spain and its preparation the EU gave Spanish presidency an ‘in-between’ status, resulting a collaborative presidency of Spain and the newly appointed European leaders.
In the case of Belgium situation is much different. As mentioned above the country is still to elect a new government and it seems it is also quite heavily involved in its own conflict of whether or not to split and cease to exist as a single country. This is the chance the the European leaders who wrote the Lisbon Treaty were waiting for. Belgium is quite simply not fit to preside over the European Union. Actually, I take that back. There is one Belgian who certainly should be fit to preside over the EU. His name is Hermon van Rompuy, the first ever appointed President of the European Council.
It is quite ironic that the former Belgian Prime Minister should fully take up the reigns of the European Union after electoral turmoil in his own country. However, irony or not it is an opportunity that cannot be missed. If van Rompuy isn’t seen pushing the EU forward by himself, as the holder of the one phone line to which any other world leader can call, then when the time comes for Hungary and its populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, they will insist to enjoy the same privileged as Spain did and show off Orban as the European leader, making any changes that Lisbon made in this regard useless.
