EU President’s Outburst Highlights the Need for Institutional Reform
You’ve probably heard by now some version of the story in which the President of the European Union said that American economic policy is putting us on “the road to hell”. What’s not always made clear in these accounts is that the EU Presidency is a rotating, ex-officio office. Each EU country gets a six month term during which its head of government becomes EU President. I think it’s been clear to observers for a while now that this is not an especially viable system. It sort of works when the EU Presidency is in the hands of one of the big European countries, but the office doesn’t carry enough power or legitimacy to really do anything in the hands of a small country leader.
And it’s also vulnerable to things like this. Mirek Topolanek is basically a nobody; he just lost a no-confidence vote in parliament, and though the Czech Republic is a great place to visit it’s not a particularly significant country. Its main geopolitical role is that right-wing Czech politicians tend to be much more further-right than you see in other European countries, they’re more like American or Australian right-wingers, so they can be counted on to do things like headline global warming denialist conference or say Barack Obama is leading us on a road to hell. In almost any conceivable other institutional arrangement, the person who winds up speaking for the EU would have to be someone whose point of view is much more reflective of mainstream European opinion. This probably isn’t at the top of the list of institutional reforms the EU needs, but compared to other proposals it ought to be relatively uncontroversial.
43 Responses to “EU President’s Outburst Highlights the Need for Institutional Reform”
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March 26th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
What is the diplomatic to say “why don’t you go f*** yourself”?
March 26th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Oh NOOOOOOOOOO!
Someone actually dissents from the Brown Shirt I mean Brown Nose ObaCult!
And Heaven’s Gate, that someone is a nobody.
Just the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic but Matt assures us that country is nothing more than a half decent little Club Med for American tourists. It doesn’t count!
Jeez, we had eight years of this trash talk from Cheney and Rumsfeld and Bushit.
Leave it to the self important little Lefty to make them look good.
Mirek’s a nobody?
Who the fuck do you think you are FatBoy?
March 26th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
On the one hand, it’s embarrassing. On the other hand, European reporting tends to consider the rotating presidency not much more than the right to host summits and put on some ceremonial guff. That sentiment doesn’t really get conveyed across the Atlantic.
The issue of cycling smaller countries into the rotation is being addressed by the Trio Presidency thing, where you have three consecutive holders working on a shared core agenda. The next three-state rotation (after Sweden finishes off this one) is going to be Spain, Belgium and Hungary, so you can see the kind of hand-holding that’s going on.
Still, I remember the days when the figurehead for the EU was a bureaucrat, and that didn’t work out so well, either.
March 26th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Well, I’d never even heard of that Topolanek guy until this morning, but…
America may be running close to a 50% (!!!) budget deficit this year, with most of the money being shoveled out to same bunch of Wall Street crooks who created the problem…
That Topolanek guy seems to have a nice way with words…
March 26th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Its main geopolitical role is that right-wing Czech politicians tend to be much more further-right than you see in other European countries…
I wonder why that is. Is it perhaps because the former Communist regime was particularly nasty there? But you’d imagine were that the case Slovakia, too, would be affected. I tend to think of the Czechs as having created a particularly strong humanistic tradition in the arts and philosophy — you know, very much in the enlightened, mainstream, liberal European tradition. What gives?
March 26th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
His wingnuttishness is an artifact of Soviet domination.
The right wing is now paranoid of anything that has a whiff of “socialism”, because it reminds them of the Warsaw Pact days.
March 26th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
In almost any conceivable other institutional arrangement, the person who winds up speaking for the EU would have to be someone whose point of view is much more reflective of mainstream European opinion. This probably isn’t at the top of the list of institutional reforms the EU needs, but compared to other proposals it ought to be relatively uncontroversial.
I believe some kind of reform was already passed and that the EU presidency will now last 2 1/2 years instead of 6 months; although I’m not sure how it will be decided.
March 26th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
His wingnuttishness is an artifact of Soviet domination.
Fair enough, but it seems to me that the Czech, Austrian, and Polish right are much more wingnutty than the Romanian or Bulgarian or Hungarian right, or that in the Baltic states.
March 26th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
pseudonymous in nc is right in his assessment of the EU Presidency that it is really nothing more than an opportunity to host and set the agenda focus for the 6-monthly Summit Meeting.
Matthew Yglesias writes:
And it is precisely to deal with institutional reform that the EU is trying to get the treaty through that the Irish keep rejecting. It is not really a constitution in the US sense, it is a massive legal document describing institutional arrangements to ensure the EU functions effectively with 27 members.
March 26th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Well, the people of the Czech Republic don’t seem to think very much of him. I’ll take their word for it.
March 26th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Matt really can’t stand opinions different from his own. He really doesn’t think they should be discussed, or even heard.
March 26th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
…hence, the unmoderated comment threads.
March 26th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Matt, no offense, but this post was really kind of obvious. I mean, sure, lots of people might not know this. But on the other hand, your EU posts tend to huddle around this level of obvious. If you want the EU to be one of your areas of expertise, which you sort of seem to want, you need to step up your game. Trying reading the FT and other European sources–do you speak any foreign languages?–because I am starting to think this FP stuff isn’t really your gig. You have had like 3 posts on how stupid Michelle Bachmann’s stuff is, which it is, but you have not once explained Special Drawing Rights were created by the IMF in 1969 to “supplement the existing official reserves of member countries.” That the tempest in a tea-cup was all pretty ridiculous because this already exists. (And for some of the reasons you mentioned.)Nor have you pointed out the most obvious debating point that the populist right’s love for the Gold Standard is in fact a love for an international currency dictated by arbitrary forces.
March 26th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Mirek Topolanek is basically a nobody … and … the Czech Republic is … not a particularly significant country
And it’s far away, too.
March 26th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
If nobody really cares about this because the guy is a figurehead, why does it highlight the need for institutional reform? Now, maybe having a useless figurehead in the position of EU president is a bad idea. I don’t know enough about the EU to offer an opinion. But the fact that he said something bad about the US or the Obama agenda is not, by itself, a particularly strong argument for institutional reform.
March 26th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Led, the biggest news out of all of this is that the collapse of the Czech government means the Czech presidency will have difficulty shepherding through the Lisbon Treaty. At its worst a Presidency hosts summits etc, at its best, it can help to set the European agenda. France did that last year–to mixed results–but now those who hoped to get the reform treaty through are worried.
March 26th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Gosh forbid someone dissent from Democratic/Left ideas. Dissent was patriotic right up until the nano-second after Obama was sworn in. After that, it became hate speech…
March 26th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Sarkozy, who conservatives used to love one hundred years ago, when Bush was president (remember the surpluses that old Bush wracked up? And man, the careful accounting of every taxpayer cent! we’ll not see his like again), did not want to give up his presidency for the putz. It is a problem. There are states in the EU, like Italy, that elect fascists. It isn’t good for the EU to have, as its public face, a fascist. Far better to have a European wide election.
March 26th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Dissent was patriotic right up until the nano-second after Obama was sworn in.
Gosh darn you, former Czech Prime Minister! You aren’t a patriotic American!
Just brilliant, Mr. Robertson. You really zoomed in on the core of Matt’s argument.
March 26th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
There are states in the EU, like Italy, that elect fascists.
Those “fascists” are to the left of the average Republican official.
March 26th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Joe from Lowell, as to the Baltics, Larry Summers mismanagement of their movement to a market economy led to the Communists coming back to power about 2 years after his program started, so I think that some reality hit there, and they realize that full bore capitalism may not be an unalloyed good.
The Poles and Czechs also got really screwed by the West after WWII, when they were handed over to the Sovs.
As to the Austrian right, they are not so much illiberal, as they are racists, as evidenced by the late, unlamented Haider.
March 26th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
I wondered how long we’d get a Europe=left, criticism from Obama=crisis for the left kinda post.
Not long, apparently. Predictable stupidity travels at the speed of suck.
March 26th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Joe from Lowell, as to the Baltics, Larry Summers mismanagement of their movement to a market economy led to the Communists coming back to power about 2 years after his program started, so I think that some reality hit there, and they realize that full bore capitalism may not be an unalloyed good.
What are you talking about? Are talking about Jeff Sachs involvement with “shock-therapy” in Poland and Russia? Or did Larry Summer really “mismanage” the Baltics economy. If so, could you supply a link?
March 26th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Because he’s in power without a constituency, which is why he needs to make so much noise just to get attention. If you want a meaningful executive, you need ot have an appointing process that selects meaningful people.
The US, btw, was a global boogeyman long before Obama came along.
March 26th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Matthew G. Saroff,
I agree that that happened in the Baltics, but shock therapy was imposed in Poland and Czechoslovakia, too, so I’m skeptical about that as an explanation.
I suspect the difference goes back to differences in national political culture, that predates the Soviets.
March 26th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Its main geopolitical role is that right-wing Czech politicians tend to be much more further-right than you see in other European countries…
I wonder why that is. Is it perhaps because the former Communist regime was particularly nasty there? But you’d imagine were that the case Slovakia, too, would be affected. I tend to think of the Czechs as having created a particularly strong humanistic tradition in the arts and philosophy — you know, very much in the enlightened, mainstream, liberal European tradition. What gives?
Part of it is exactly that traditional European liberalism, or rather, “classical liberalism” – the opposition under communism was more intellectual, and explicitly libertarian and pro-free market than other states, and not only did they reap the legitimacy that attaches to prominent antagonists when regimes collapse, they got a lot of attention, aid, and ideas from Western co-ideologues hoping to create a model for post-Warsaw Pact de-collectivization.
March 26th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
The shock therapy in the Baltics was particularly brutal.
Read Mark Ames’ takedown of Summers. The pertinent bit on the Baltics:
Lawrence Summers has a record of falling upward that rivals Dick Cheney.
As to a link, here it is.
March 26th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Thanks for the link, but it isn’t really helpful. How did Summers influence the Baltics decision to go for shock therapy. What did he do? Wasn’t he at the World Bank at the time? When people blame Jeff Sachs for shock therapy I understand the connection, but I still don’t understand what Summers role was.
March 26th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Ad hominem much?
Yeah, much better for us to listen to “regular” European leaders, you know, the ones who are happy to preside over persistent 10-12 percent unemployment. We like them so much better, because they like Obama.
March 26th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
As ndm said, the Irish referendum on the Lisbon treaty threw a spanner in the works, so the trio-presidency model is informal right now. The Prague summit is next weekend, just after the G20 (it’s clearly conference season) and it’s probably going to be a damp squib, so it’ll be down to the Swedes in October to see what they can put together.
March 26th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
I am going to protest (as I have elsewhere) the contention that Topolanek is the EU President.
The Czech Republic holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union.
The Council of the European Union is the most important institution of the European Union, in that it represents the member governments, but it is, as such, the least EU-ey of the EU institutions. It is considered to be kind of an analogue of the German Bundesrat – the upper house of the EU legislature (the EU Parliament being the lower house) – except that it’s more important because the individual states retain more power.
But the reason the Council is more important is precisely the reason that the presidency of the Council is mostly meaningless – as Pseudonymous says, it’s basically about hosting meetings.
On the other hand, it’s worth noting that the EU executive is a body called the European Commission, and that the European Commission actually has its own president, who is actually kind of a separate European president, rather than just the head of government of some member country. (Currently it’s José Manuel Barroso, a former prime minister of Portugal; before him it was Romano Prodi, the former prime minister of Italy). My sense has always been that the task of “speaking for the EU” has generally fallen to the European Commission and its president much more than to the President of the Council.
March 26th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
“It ought to be relatively uncontroversial.” I would think not. The trick is that Europe wanted concerted action to become serious forces in a world dominated by the U.S. actions and Asian growth, but Europe also didn’t want the ideal of continental government, any more than the U.N. has softened most people to the ideal of global government. They see themselves as nations with distinct histories, goals, and forms of government.
The temporary status accorded a Czech wingnut won’t suffice to create a consensus where none exists.
March 26th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
I don’t know about the Czechs, but the Poles have long had a major streak of paranoia, conspiratorial thinking, and a reactionary sense of their own victimization. It may be the result of centuries of continual subjugation at the hands of the Austrians, Germans and Russians. As a result, the Poles have tended to displace their aggression onto the Jews and Ukrainians.
March 26th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
I think its the equivalent of the governor of each state getting to be Vice President for six months, with some provision made to keep these people from actually becoming President if something happened to the President. So every so often someone like Palin would become Vice President and say something embarrassing, but it wouldn’t really affect things. We have worse anomalies in our system.
March 26th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
I think it’s been clear to observers for a while now that this is not an especially viable system.
If you’re still in the habit of doing rquests, I would be genuinely curious as to what your vision is for European governance. Just looking through the CAP posts tagged ‘Europe’ there was nothing specific, but I didn’t search in any pre-thinkprogress blogs of yours.
March 26th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Oh good Lord. Of all of the things that the EU has to reform you pick this? How utterly transparent…I mean this is just absurd beyond belief. He says something that you don’t agree with…or perhaps what ThinkProgress doesn’t agree with…and suddenly its a post.
I’ve got a name for this process its called “Willing.”
Memo comes from the WH to its friends and onto TP and then down to poor Matthew Yglesias. Campaign ensues.
Really, really intellectually dishonest and just pathetic. You guys are no better than the Heritage Foundation.
March 26th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
Well, just so happens that the Czech Republic, home of Yglesias’s despised conservatives, is the most successful formerly Warsaw Pact economy, and one of the least affected in Europe by the current financial crisis.
In other words, the Czechs are doing right, conservatively, what the Americans are doing wrong. Take that and go to hell, American liberals.
March 26th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
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March 26th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
Mirek topolanek is basically a nobody. Matt you might want to take another look at that phrase and reflect on what it says about you.
March 27th, 2009 at 9:26 am
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March 27th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Myles,
A bit off topic, but I don’t know if I’d say that the Czech’s are the least affected by this crisis. Eastern Europe is a house of cards (bad loans) that may very well collapse in the near future.
I like the government over there (although it doesn’t seem as though anyone else does), but they’re up to their knees in unseen problems over there.
March 27th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Czech lending has been much more sensible than in many of these other countries…it is fairly difficult to get a mortgage, standards are traditional (if you’re over 50, you’re basically hosed), and rates are somewhat on the high side. This must be regulatory or cultural, as most of the banks are foreign owned by the same conglomerates (like UniCredit or Raiffaisen) which have been getting into major highjinks elsewhere. I have also never heard of anyone taking out a foreign currency denominated mortgage, which is the basic problem for the Hungarians and the Poles (and I think also the Ukrainians), so they will not be subjected to exchange rate fluctuations there. The crown has been swinging fairly widely in the last year or so but is a hell of a lot sounder than the forint or zloty. The economy IS in bad trouble however, for the same reason that Canada’s is. Good policy doesn’t do you much good when you are basically an economic colony, and a huge majority of Czech exports go straight to Germany, which is reeling.
March 27th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Eastern Europe is a house of cards (bad loans) that may very well collapse in the near future.
When the Hungarians were asking for a East European rescue package from Merkel, the Czechs objected loudly to it on its face, because the Czechs, given their far better and more insulated position, do not need, or want, to be lumped together with more irresponsible countries.
What more need I say?
Yglesias is badmouthing the only responsible PM so far in entire East Europe, who had charted a fiscal course far superior and wiser to those of his counterpoints elsewhere. Yglesias, in other words, is being an obnoxious dick.