In my previous post I have pointed out that on the 1st of July a perfect opportunity will present itself for the leaders of the European institutions to take up the reigns of Europe from national politicians. Are they up to the job, though? First of all let us consider the position of the European Council President.
Herman van Rompuy was appointed as the first President of the European Council under the Lisbon Treaty following weeks of speculation. The commentary of his appointment has been mixed, to put it mildly. Many saw him as ‘Mr Nobody’, some claimed he was too radical in his federalist views, while others thought he’d be toy for Merkel and Sarkozy to push their own ideals. Overall, people and commentators saw this appointment was a bad choice.
Over the six months of his presidency so far, van Rompuy has displayed a mixed political leadership. When dealing with the eurozone debt crisis and in particular Greece, he has been overshadowed by Angela Merkel who took charge and lead the way to stabilising the euro. One can, however, easily understand this as it Germany who are going to contribute the most to healing the debt crisis and so Merkel could have been expected to be this proactive. (She also managed to outshine bigger players such as the chairman of the IMF,Dominique Strauss-Kahn, or the Secretary General of the OECD, Angel Gurría.)
Next comes the Haitian earthquake crisis. Here, van Rompuy cannot be accused of not leading the way or being direct enough (as opposed to the EU Higher Representative for Foreign Affairs Cathrine Ashton). The European Council President has led the way by stating that the EU needs to prepare a unit of emergency humanitarian corps. These would be quickly deployed into areas that are destroyed by natural disasters instead of the prolong procedure that exists today. A noble and quite brilliant idea indeed. However, since the Haitian earthquake there has not been even a sign of this being implemented or even considered. Van Rompuy’s idea has simply been ignored by the European leaders.
So far a very poor track record for someone whom we expect to guide the European Union forward. However a turning point for van Rompuy came during the recent EU-Russia summit. During this summit, which dealt mostly with economic matter, van Rompuy showed great deal of leadership as he negotiated with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev. The two looked exactly as they should, two counterparts, two presidents. However the most important aspect of this meeting was that van Rompuy was not afraid to open the agenda of human rights in Russia. This is the agenda that many try to avoid when talking to Medvedev. But there was no harsh reply from Russia, no swift remark that they would not talk about such things. Simply Medvedev agreed that there needs to be a lot of improvements done in that area.
When we look back at van Rompuy’s career as the European Council President is has steadily progressed. From ‘Mr Nobody’ we have someone who takes initiative and is regarded as a counterpart by world leaders. This is exactly the kind of person whom we can expect to lead the Union forward.
