Herman van Awesome

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.

Time to Strike

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.