Hail to the Chief?
Hail to the Chief?
Should Tony Blair be appointed President of the European Union? I know, that’s not the title, but that’s how it will be seen in the world, so get over it. But is he the man for the job? I mean, he’s obviously not the woman for the job, but you get my point.
It’s another issue that I find myself conflicted over. For a start, I don’t think most ordinary Europeans want him, because of Iraq, and the EU needs to listen to public opinion. But on the other hand, a President Blair will put the EU on the map. Along with Bill Clinton and President Obama, he’s one of the great communicators. Across the world, people will know who President Blair is, as opposed to President Junker, or President Bildt or President Balkenende. I mean seriously, if Carl Bildt broke into your house and stole your DVD player, could you pick him out of a line up? (Margot Wallstrom, you’re barred from this competition!)
Once again, however, it shows why we really should be directly electing this person. Sure, no one outside of Sweden would initally know who Carl Bildt is, but if we had a year long nominating procedure, we’d get to know the candidates. After all, five years ago, nobody had heard of a Kenyan-American politician with a funny name.
Ralf,
The problem with having a parliamentary government in Europe is that it would be so distant from voters as to be meaningless to them. We live, possibly sadly, in a personality driven age, and that to me means that voters must be able, from Cyprus to Galway, to be able to look at teh same name on a ballot paper and say ” That’s the one I want.” Also, a president who sees his/her mandate coming from all across the union is more likely to think European, whereas MEPs (Rightly, in fairness.) still have a national loyalty.
TB to represent “Yurup”? Was it only 2006 when the Sainted Bliar vowed to crackdown on bogus employment ? How time flies.
Hope he can spare the time after advising JP Morgan, Zurich & not forgetting his role as Special Envoy to the Middle East (that went really well, didn’t it).
Kind regards
If we advance towards elected politicians deciding on all EU matters, we should perhaps stop for a while to think about which president should be politically accountable.
My preference is for a real government, based on the European Parliament elections, so developing the role of the Commission president would be more in line with a working EU level democracy.
Systems with competing heads of government and state tend to be problematic.