I'll be president of Europe if you give me the power - Blair

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Adonis33

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Tony Blair has been holding discussions with some of his oldest allies on how he could mount a campaign later this year to become full-time president of the EU council, the prestigious new job characterised as “president of Europe”. Blair, currently the Middle East envoy for the US, Russia, EU and the UN, has told friends he has made no final decision, but is increasingly willing to put himself forward for the job if it comes with real powers to intervene in defence and trade affairs.

politics.guardian.co.uk/tonyblair/story/0,2251169,00.html
 
Given the perception of him as George Bush’s lap dog by many in Europe, I’m surprised he’s considered a serious candidate.
 
You know, I just don’t get the EU. I mean, the political side of it. Economically, it makes sense- but the proponents of it keep pushing political unification down the throats of Europeans even though the Europeans themselves, the normal citizens, seem to be ambivalent at best and openly opposed at worst.

All this talk of “an ever increasing union” and the “third pillar” just mystifies me- and probably most Europeans. Who wants this and why are they doing it? Why force a single government on such a diverse population?

Are they afraid they’ll start killing each other again or something?
 
mschrank said:
Who wants this and why are they doing it? Why force a single government on such a diverse population?

Are they afraid they’ll start killing each other again or something?
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Speaking as a European, the economic benefits are definitely present and evident, as you mentioned. A unified government also serves its purpose in that it solidifies common areas of human rights and policies, which were before simple left to the devices of regional government. The problem is of course the beaurocracy which seems to be ever expanding.

Tony Blaire is now Catholic, so I don’t think he’s the worst candidate we could come up with.
 
mschrank said:
You know, I just don’t get the EU. I mean, the political side of it.

All this talk of “an ever increasing union” and the “third pillar” just mystifies me- and probably most Europeans. Who wants this and why are they doing it? Why force a single government on such a diverse population?
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The desire for further centralization is mostly a response to the failures of a fractious and decentralized EU.

One of the most notable issues has been the various wars in the former Yugoslavia. Despite a desire to deal with a European problem on their own, European leaders were unable to meaningfully influence the course of events in Bosnia, and the US finally had to step in. The advent of border-free travel from one EU state to another means that the weakest link becomes the port through which refugees and economic migrants can stream wholesale into the rest of Europe. A similar problem is the case for crime, whether it be terrorism, drug traffic, weapons, prostitutes - there would be very few federal crimes in the US if state laws could handle the problem effectively. Finally, there are foreign policy issues which are mostly based on economic ones - or economic issues which are mostly based on foreign policy, such as energy importation from Russia, intellectual property issues and regulation of genetically modified food from North America, sales of weapons to Taiwan in the face of Chinese pressure.

A united Europe is a much stronger force to reckon with on all of these issues, but the tradeoff is of course that individual governments don’t get the voice they feel they deserve.
 
Apart from Blair, two other candidates most often mentioned are the former Austrian chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel, promoted by Germany, and the current Luxembourg prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker.
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If I were a betting man I would suppose that the larger EU nations will wind up agreeing on someone from one of the smaller nations to chair the council of ministers rather than a Brit or a Frenchman or a German.

The History of the EEC/EU has been a week central executive to preserve the power of the member states especially the big 5.

The prime minister of Luxembourg may be a fine man. I don’t know anything about him. But he probably doesn’t have a large power base to give the chairmanship any real teeth.
 
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