Blair reappears on short-list to head EU

Who could be the new European President

The full-time president will take office next year only if the EU’s Lisbon institutional reform treaty, which creates the position, is ratified by all member-states – notably, Ireland, which is expected to hold a second referendum on the treaty between September and December.

My own opinion is that the European President should be from one of the Eurozone countries.

If the Yes mean had any sense they'd be hinting at offering it to an Irish candidate as a means of boosting support for The Constitution Lisbon II. Who'd be a credible candidate? We obviously don't have any high-profile war criminals like Blair to propose, but we've a fair few criminals we could do without for a few years.

coc wrote:

If the Yes mean had any sense they'd be hinting at offering it to an Irish candidate as a means of boosting support for The Constitution Lisbon II. Who'd be a credible candidate? We obviously don't have any high-profile war criminals like Blair to propose, but we've a fair few criminals we could do without for a few years.

I think it will have to be someone from the big three; France, Germany or Italy.

If I were a betting man, I would consider Romano Prodi to be a candidate. He has a lot of EU and national government experiance and is well known throughout Europe.
After him, I reckon its time the Germans stepped up to the plate.
Gerhard Schröder springs to mind. I liked him. Bit of a lad but alright for all of that.

What ever chance the EU may have at some credibility in the eyes of the people who have to live with it it would be totally shot should that useless waste of space be allowed anywhere any position. Just as well he doesn't have to be elected to it.

Johnny Keogh wrote:

coc wrote:

If the Yes mean had any sense they'd be hinting at offering it to an Irish candidate as a means of boosting support for The Constitution Lisbon II. Who'd be a credible candidate? We obviously don't have any high-profile war criminals like Blair to propose, but we've a fair few criminals we could do without for a few years.

I think it will have to be someone from the big three; France, Germany or Italy.

If I were a betting man, I would consider Romano Prodi to be a candidate. He has a lot of EU and national government experiance and is well known throughout Europe.
After him, I reckon its time the Germans stepped up to the plate.
Gerhard Schröder springs to mind. I liked him. Bit of a lad but alright for all of that.

We'd have no chance of putting it the Russians with that Gazprom lackey at our head. Far too much of an apologist to the Ruskies for my taste. I would hzard an assertion that he is part of the reason we're in the fuel mess we're in now.

cookiemonster wrote:

What ever chance the EU may have at some credibility in the eyes of the people who have to live with it it would be totally shot should that useless waste of space be allowed anywhere any position. Just as well he doesn't have to be elected to it.

Which one, lads. I'm lost here....

Johnny Keogh wrote:

cookiemonster wrote:

What ever chance the EU may have at some credibility in the eyes of the people who have to live with it it would be totally shot should that useless waste of space be allowed anywhere any position. Just as well he doesn't have to be elected to it.

Which one, lads. I'm lost here....

Blair. The useless waster's useless waster.

cookiemonster wrote:

Johnny Keogh wrote:

cookiemonster wrote:

What ever chance the EU may have at some credibility in the eyes of the people who have to live with it it would be totally shot should that useless waste of space be allowed anywhere any position. Just as well he doesn't have to be elected to it.

Which one, lads. I'm lost here....

Blair. The useless waster's useless waster.

have to agree with you there Cookie

Is this the Blair Bitch Project? Can I join in?

Frightened Albanian wrote:

cookiemonster wrote:

Johnny Keogh wrote:

cookiemonster wrote:

What ever chance the EU may have at some credibility in the eyes of the people who have to live with it it would be totally shot should that useless waste of space be allowed anywhere any position. Just as well he doesn't have to be elected to it.

Which one, lads. I'm lost here....

Blair. The useless waster's useless waster.

have to agree with you there Cookie

Ah yes. I agree. Would'nt be my choice.
As 905 pointed out about Schroder.....

As Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder was a strong advocate of the Nord Stream pipeline project, which aims to supply Russian gas directly to Germany and thereby bypassing transit countries. The agreement to build the pipeline was signed two weeks before the German parliamentary election. On 24 October 2005, just a few weeks before Schröder stepped down as a Chancellor, the German government guaranteed to cover 1 billion euros of the Nord Stream project cost, should Gazprom default on a loan. However, this guarantee had never been used.^[13] Soon after stepping down as chancellor, Schröder accepted Gazprom's nomination for the post of the head of the shareholders' committee of Nord Stream AG, raising questions about a potential conflict of interest. German opposition parties have expressed concern over the issue, as have the governments of countries over whose territory gas is currently pumped.^[14] In an editorial entitled Gerhard Schroeder's Sellout, the American newspaper Washington Post has also expressed sharp criticism, reflecting widening international ramifications of Schröder's new post.^[15] Democrat Tom Lantos, chairman of the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs and Holocaust survivor, likened Schröder to a "political prostitute" for his recent behaviour.


He appears to have done a bit of a Tom Parlon.

The opening lines of the FT article give the game away:

Quote :

Tony Blair, the former UK prime minister, is re-emerging as a possible choice to be the European Union’s first full-time president after four momentous crises reinforced the argument for having a high-profile international personality in the job.

This is little more than column stuffing by the FT. The rest of the article makes it clear that it is just one journo's speculation.

There are a number of factors which will drive the choice of Commission President or, if Lisbon is passed, the EU President. One of the most important is going to be the configration of the European Parliament post the elections in June.

If, as is anticpated, the PES do particularly well and overtake the EPP-ED group then there would be a very strong case for the top job to go to a socialist/social democrat, in which case either Margot Wallström or Poul Nyrup Rasmussen would be my top tips.

Perhaps Blair ain't such a bad choice after all.

cookiemonster wrote:

Perhaps Blair ain't such a bad choice after all.

He is the People's President, cookie.

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

cookiemonster wrote:

Perhaps Blair ain't such a bad choice after all.

He is the People's President, cookie.

Don't make me ill.

cookiemonster wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

cookiemonster wrote:

Perhaps Blair ain't such a bad choice after all.

He is the People's President, cookie.

Don't make me ill.

His mission for Europe will be integration, integration, integration!

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

cookiemonster wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

cookiemonster wrote:

Perhaps Blair ain't such a bad choice after all.

He is the People's President, cookie.

Don't make me ill.

His mission for Europe will be integration, integration, integration!

And he will be as useful at that as he proved to be as Prime Minister and Peace Envoy.

cookiemonster wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

cookiemonster wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

cookiemonster wrote:

Perhaps Blair ain't such a bad choice after all.

He is the People's President, cookie.

Don't make me ill.

His mission for Europe will be integration, integration, integration!

And he will be as useful at that as he proved to be as Prime Minister and Peace Envoy.

Indeed, he will fail to turn those squares into cubics!

It appears from this article that the fat cats have cut and divided the cake amongst themselves. No mention here of any of the "new" EU member states, except for Poland. Do they really think these states will allow themselves in being steamrollered by the "old" EU states? Me thinks not. Furthermore, this article seems to laud Sarkozy's achievements, what results can one objectively list on paper, safe for all the hoo-ha's. Right: nothing ! Same for Phony Tony Blair, a lap dog panting lots of hot air. I for one would hope the Irish will vote No in the upcoming referendum, unless the citizens of Europe will get a right to vote for these EU top jobs, either through a direct vote or through the European Parliament, I for one am sick and tired in old boys networks and smokefilled back rooms. I will gladly send Tony &his clicque packing tarred & feathered to Baghdad !

I would gladly show all "former politicians" to the Defenestration Chamber. They are no longer elected or accountable, yet they use their "former" votes to buy highly rewarded places in the public and private sector.

Welcome, Ratatouille. Lively first post

And he wont even be elected by the people?

If we cant trust the people of europe to choose for europe, how can we trust overpaid, above-the-law elitists?

Respvblica wrote:

And he wont even be elected by the people?

If we cant trust the people of europe to choose for europe, how can we trust overpaid, above-the-law elitists?

Of course the proposed President of the EU woud not be popularly elected. Many people, including myself, would be very much opposed to that idea as it would cross the federalist line and create an immensely powerful post with widespread direct legitimacy. The process suggested in Lisbon ensures that the Presidency remains subect to the ministerial represetatives of the member states, in much the same way that the current Presidency of the Council is.

The "above-the-law elitsits" (a Bushism by the way if you watched yesterday's self-serving press conference) are the democatically-elected heads of government of the EU member states. Overpaid they might be (ceratinly in the case of our very own Taoiseach) but they are people with significant democratic legitimacy.

Quote :

widespread direct legitimacy

We wouldn't want that ...

cactus flower wrote:

Quote :

widespread direct legitimacy

We wouldn't want that ...

When it comes to the chairperson of the EU council, absolutely not.

If there was a direct election, Ireland would be as irrelevant as the likes of Hawai'i or Alaska, where they often announce the winner of a US presidential election before they have finished voting, so irrelevant are they. It would be the British, the Germans and maybe one or two others who would win dominate and win everything and Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Luxembourg, Austria, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands etc would be irrelevant in effect. You have to use the current system to stop large countries with large populations controlling everything. Ireland has had presidents of the European Council, Portugal has had a president of the Commission, Luxembourg has had a president of the Commission, and Ireland would have had one had Haughey not shafted Peter Sutherland when he was in line for the job.

It is one of the (many) perversities of the No side. On the one side they claim (wrongly) that Ireland loses its voting power at council. On the other side they want to introduce a system that would make Ireland as irrelevant as a tit on a bull!

Direct election for office-holders only works in states. It cannot work in multi-state organisations because it would guarantee the winner would always come from the biggest country with the biggest bloc vote. So in reality the only people really pushing for direct election of positions like council president are extreme federalists like Valerie Gisgard d'Estaing and Declan Ganley who want to see the EU become a state. (Gisgard had to be prevented from trying to force popular election into the constitution, in the knowledge that if he succeeded it would have produced a Franco-German federalist agenda dominating and make everyone else little more than colonies.)

It seems Ganley's erstwhile friend Klaus has realised that Ganley is actually an extreme federalist who called for the creation of a European Supreme Court and explicitly told a US audience he wants a "United States of Europe" to work with the United States of America to promote "liberty", the US-definition of liberty and the US-definition of capitalism. (Ganley told another audience that the EU as it stands is "too socialist" and needs to be moved closer to the US model, where capitalism rules.) Klaus and others have rumbled that Ganley was not what they thought he was, and Libertas is not what they thought it was. So they are not accepting his 'kind' offer to allow them to run under his in reality extreme federalist and extreme capitalist banner.

So in fact Cactus direct election for the chairperson of the council would be a disaster for all small countries and make them completely marginalised. (A number of the small countries have said if it was ever introduced they would quit the EU. They would see their status in direct elections as effectively being powerless colonies, like Ireland in the Act of Union, with no chance of holding key offices.)

cactus flower wrote:

Quote :

widespread direct legitimacy

We wouldn't want that ...

Not in terms of "direct" election for that role, no. I am not a fan of presidential systems and believe that the European Parliament is the most important, and ultimately what will be the most successful vehicle for the further democratisation of the institutions of the EU.

PK has dealt with the other substantial objection.

Ok, we are at serious risk of my supper seeing the light of day again. if there is any politician that brings out the homicidal maniac in me, it is Bliar. Just a few of my objections: all spin and no substance, warmonger, in charge during cash-for-honours, passports for sale to wealthy foreigners, and, worst of all, the BAE-prince Bandar 1 bn Stg to buy 24 bn fighter jets fiasco. If that man is appointed as EU president, I will be joining Libertas, Coir and Sinn Fein all at once

I had to put up with 5 years of that man's misrule in the UK and I NEVER want to see him in a position of power again.

Auuughhhhh