Tony Blair for EU Prez?
If the rest of Europe can lean on the Czech Republic to sign the Lisbon Treaty, Europe will be destined to get a President—a new office that’s being created. A lot of the early buzz seems to be focused on Tony Blair, but that seems pretty misguided to me. For one thing, he’s from a center-left party at a time when the center-right parties are generally ascendant in Europe and specifically won the European Parliament elections. Insofar as part of the idea of Lisbon is to create more democratic legitimacy for EU institutions it seems to me that it makes sense to try to have the presidential selection follow the parliamentary elections and pick someone from a European People’s Party or else the centrist/liberal ALDE group that holds the balance of power. Second, it seems that it would be weird to pick someone from a non-Euro member and generally Euroskeptical country. Third, I think someone from a small country would make more sense—someone for whom the job could count as a promotion, rather than a swansong.
Fortunately, I have an ideal candidate in mind. Jan Peter Balkenende. He’s been Prime Minister of the Netherlands since July of 2002, but he’s only 53. He’s a Christian Democrat, but he’s worked with liberals and with social democrats in different coalitions. The Dutch are very much at the heart of the European project and also have strong ties to the United States. Yes, yes, he’s an obscure figure but that’d be part of the point. It’d be an opportunity for a seemingly talented, relatively young politician from a small country to make something out of the office.
44 Responses to “Tony Blair for EU Prez?”
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October 7th, 2009 at 9:46 am
but can he sing?
those Europeans like to settle things via sing offs and voting
October 7th, 2009 at 9:51 am
“For one thing, he’s from a center-left party at a time when the center-right…”
Pardon me but Tony Blair instituted many of the Thacher proposals. He is center right.
October 7th, 2009 at 9:55 am
The risk, of course, is that it makes nothing out of the office. To the extent that they want someone with charisma and international cachet, a EurObama, if you will, Blair would not be a terrible choice– though one marvels that his legacy is not so tarnished by the war that this choice is already unthinkable.
October 7th, 2009 at 10:02 am
send me that bumpersticker dammit, and I’ll slap it on my VW.
Balenkende in 2010!
October 7th, 2009 at 10:06 am
Although the debate for a long time seemed to be stalwart, it took a quite drastic turn when the prime-minister, at the end of the first period of the debate, stated that Hirsi Ali had to sign a letter in which she took the blame for the whole situation in order to retain her citizenship.
The Prime Minister in question is Balenkende. Really Matt? You sure you want this posturing persona at a time when anti-immigrant demagoguery is at fever pitch all over Europe?
October 7th, 2009 at 10:06 am
dude, his name is BALKENENDE. Jan Pieter Balkenende.
Or you could just call him Harry Potter like the Dutch do.
October 7th, 2009 at 10:18 am
British center left = continental center richt on EU issues.
October 7th, 2009 at 10:23 am
The problem with Blair is that Europeans have pretty much completely rejected
1. the New Left
2. the Iraq War
As Matt suggests, for Euro elites to turn around and pick Blair is to underline the whole problem with the Lisbon treaty, which is that it is the tool of the incumbent political class with much vested in the status quo at a time when the status quo doesn’t look so good. In Ireland, the outcome of the vote was driven by bribery (which is not to say it was illegitimate),.
British center left = continental center richt on EU issues.
To borrow from Gertrude Stein, the establishment is the establishment is the establishment.
October 7th, 2009 at 10:35 am
“EU President” is a largely irrelevant title. Do you know who it is today?
Might as well give this post to Blair if it means he will stop talking about Jesus.
October 7th, 2009 at 10:44 am
You missed the most important fact – Blair is a smarmy war-mongering wanker who should get kicked in the teeth every day for the rest of his life.
(okay, okay, with a day off for the Comic Relief thing)
October 7th, 2009 at 10:52 am
I agree with Matt’s very surface assessment, but I think it should at least be explored that Balkenende – or at least his cabinet – has in the past had a controversial record on immigration policy, something very much at the heart of contemporary Europe. While by no means a Geert Wilders or Nick Griffin, he did have Rita Verdonk as his Minister for Integration and Immigration for some years, who proposed and implemented a number of harsh measures on immigration, including a ban on the burqa, a refusal to grant amnesty to some 26,000 asylum seekers who had been living in the Netherlands for more than 5 years, and a consideration to send back homosexual asylum seekers from Iran after they were de jure no longer prosecuted. I’m not insinuating that Balkenende would follow this same line as EU president, but this kind of record should be very carefully considered for this kind of position.
October 7th, 2009 at 10:53 am
It really doesn’t matter to Matt at all that Tony Blair would be a hard right winger in most of these countries? Europe has completely and utterly rejected Blar’s political views. Third Way BS is dead, and has killed a whole lot of European opposition parties in the process. I know Matt hates to acknowledge that his personal ideology is very unpopular virtually everywhere, but it is and there are very good reasons for that.
Matt LIKES warmongering. Hell, the only reason he’s disappointed that Iraq went poorly is that he knows that it will now be harder to sell future wars.
October 7th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Fortunately, I have an ideal candidate in mind.
For those of you who don’t follow EU politics too closely. What Matt really means to say is: Fortunately, Germany and the Benelux countries have an ideal candidate in mind.
October 7th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Blair has the global stature needed to make the job politically relevant.
Without Blair or someone of similar stature, the EU presidency is just another make-work job in the big EU bureaucracy.
October 7th, 2009 at 11:45 am
What does Blair stand for, if not a freewheeing British finance sector and invading Iraq? If Blair, why not go full-on with Dubya? He’s got Presidential experience, and we’d happily let them have him.
October 7th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Talented politician? Meh. The guy has the charisma of a doorknob and hasn’t shown inspiring leadership to say the least.
But if the EU wants him, all the better for us I’d say.
October 7th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
If we’re going to go with Bush-toadying warmongers, it might be a lot of fun to see Berlusconi as EU President. Or maybe Azner – what’s he up to these days?
October 7th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Why oh why Says:
October 7th, 2009 at 10:35 am
“EU President” is a largely irrelevant title. Do you know who it is today?
Might as well give this post to Blair if it means he will stop talking about Jesus.
Did you even read the post. There *isn’t* an EU president today. It’s a new position that will be created if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified. Come on.
October 7th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Or totally better yet – get really creative – Otto von Hapsburg is still alive and available – and already has been a member of the European Parliament – and his family totally represents the idea of a “united Europe”
(from Wikipedia):
“An early advocate of a unified Europe, Otto was president of the International Paneuropean Union from 1986 to 2004. He served from 1979 till 1999 as a Member of the European Parliament for the conservative CSU party, becoming the Senior Member of the supranational body. He is also a member of the Mont Pelerin Society. He was a major supporter of the expansion of the European Union from the beginning and especially of the acceptance of Hungary. During his time in parliament Otto is alleged to have struck fellow MEP Ian Paisley. When Pope John Paul II gave a speech to the European Parliament in 1988, Paisley shouted at the Pope, “I renounce you as the Antichrist!” and held up a poster reading “Pope John Paul II Antichrist”, whereupon he was excluded from the session and expelled from the room by other MEPs”
anybody who has the balls to call JPII the “Antichrist” would be awesome to have on the world stage
The only drawback is that the dude’s like 96 years old
October 7th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
I think your boldest assumption is ‘Insofar as part of the idea of Lisbon is to create more democratic legitimacy for EU institutions’. I think the goal of the EU is to make Europe more like the US: a highly federalized, central government able to spread the political representation very thinly across a vast, heterogenous group of underlying institutions. They want to have a US system, with a similar president, and Tony Blair would fit in much more snugly to this post than a more traditional European.
October 7th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
There *isn’t* an EU president today. It’s a new position that will be created if the Lisbon Treaty is ratified.
Nah.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_European_Council
The current “EU President” is Fredrik Reinfeldt, Prime Minister of Sweden.
What does Blair stand for, if not a freewheeing British finance sector and invading Iraq?
Jesus and the Pope.
October 7th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
No they didn’t! The conservative European People’s Party happened to win a plurality of the seats in the European Parliament. They are the largest minority, with the balance of power held by the centrist ALDE.
The results of the election say absolutely zero about whether Europeans would prefer a centre-right or a centre-left leader.
October 7th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Of course you can make the case that various recent national elections (like the German election) suggest that Europe has turned against the left.
October 7th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
The President of the European Council is something more like the President Pro Tem of the Senate, rather than the President of the U.S.
You don’t often hear the media refer to Robert Byrd as “the President”.
October 7th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
I think the whole Blair shtick was a slip of Glenys Kinnock’s who didn’t engage brain before suggesting that the UK would back a Blair bid.
I think with a fair amount of nervousness over popular mandates for the European bureaucracy it would be strange to pick as a president someone so controversial and intensely opposed by a large proportion of the European electorate (not least in Britain)–remember Europeans never bought the Iraq war and blame Blair entirely for the European end of it, and for dividing Europe over the issue.
Other than that all the things you say are true and operative.
Indeed a Dutch and Belgians are always a good bet.
October 7th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
In today’s FT, Charles Grant quotes an Indian official as saying
“If you want us to respect your EU president, choose someone we have heard of, like Mr Blair, Angela Merkel or Nicolas Sarkozy. If you choose the prime minister of Luxembourg we may not find the time to meet him.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f4ddba26-b2aa-11de-b7d2-00144feab49a.html
The EU has had relatively minor former leaders as EU Commision President before (and now) but they have not been taken as seriously as they should be. This is their opportunity to get a heavy hitter. It would be a shame to waste it.
October 7th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Why oh Why:
“EU President” is a largely irrelevant title. Do you know who it is today?
There isn’t one, at the moment, which contributes significantly to its irrelevance.
There is a President of the European Council and a President of the European Commission, both of whom are sometimes erroneously referred to as EU president. We aren’t talking about either of those jobs, we’re talking about the actual EU Presidency, which would be created by the Treaty of Lisbon (read: the EU Constitution-Lite), provided the Czechs ratify it.
October 7th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
pt, the EU Commission President has real power and should be taken rather seriously. By contrast, this “new” post is largely symbolic; only a has-been politician like Blair (or a faceless bureaucrat) would consider it.
October 7th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
seemingly talented
Hahahahahahahhahahaha!
October 7th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
[...] PANIEK!!! Amerikaanse progressieve bloggers gaan JP pushen07-10-2009 om 20:47 door Steeph PANIEK!!! Amerikaanse progressieve bloggers gaan JP pushen als president van Europa!!! Europa, Jan Peter Balkenende, Paniek, Waan v/d Dag Terug naar het [...]
October 7th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
If Blair were made president of the European Council there would certainly be riots, possibly even the loss of life. He is almost certainly the most hated politician in Europe, this generations Thatcher.
Remember that everyone remembers with awful clarity the role that Blair had in promoting the invasion of Iraq and that there was vast popular majority opposition to it in the EU, it was after all blindingly obvious from the offset that it was an illegal and immoral undertaking likely to have awful consequences.
It is bizarre that some Indian civil servant thinks he is a man of influence likely to command respect, the main thing he did after all was commit his country to blindly following America’s worst ever president.
For anyone wondering about Tony’s current mission to promote death and injustice he is currently the representative of the Quartet on the Middle East where he has been an abject, pathetic, universally derided failure.
Of course that does not mean the council of ministers will not try to have him as president. If the European Project is about anything it is about giving power and status to former politicians and removing accountability for the executive while giving one in the eye to the European electorate.
October 7th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Oh god please no, not Balkenende, anything but Balkenende.
Europe is already a laughing stock, do we really need to formalize it and make Harry Potter the president?
October 7th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
much as i’d be delirious with joy if we got balkenende out of our hair, his appointment as eu prez would make me at least as unhappy as a blair appointment.
i never wanted the
constitutionlisbon treaty anyhow but got that rammed down my throat. if this ill-fated eu-state experiment continues with either of these two, that would truly be be adding insult to injury.October 7th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Well, Obama is a laughing stock in the US, look at what he has screwed up, from the perspective of GWB
If George W Bush was an idiot
If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?
If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan’s holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant
gift, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky?
If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia , would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent “Austrian language,” would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?
If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to “Cinco de Cuatro” in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment?
If George W. Bush had mis-spelled the word “advice” would you have hammered him for it for years
like Dan Quayle and potatoe as proof of what a dunce he is?
If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he’s a hypocrite?
If George W. Bush’s administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11?
If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence?
If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?
If George W Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken
more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved?
So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can’t think of anything? Don’t worry. He’s done all this in 5 months — so you’ll have three years and seven months to come up with an answer.
Good luck in America
October 7th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
[...] Endgame: — Dutch journalist says the only people talking about Balkenende for EU President are Dutch journalists ignoring clear evidence that I’m talking about it. [...]
October 7th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Matt,
The EPP has been splintered – a lot of the more Euro-skeptics (ie the Czechs, the Polish, and the British conservatives) are forming a new Euro party. So I think you can probably expect to see a centre-left coalition take power in the EP. Although the EP has very little power. Expect the President of the EU to be determined in the European Council (ie the Heads of State of the member countries) who decide on the trajectory of European policy in (I think) twice-a-year summits.
Also, remember that all major British parties promised a referendum on Lisbon. Labour and the LibDems have backed off, but David Cameron has said that if action has not been taken by the next General Election, he will put it to the vote upon being elected.
October 7th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
oh noes
Not JP
October 7th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
JPB is a very weak prime minister of the Netherlands. There is no surprise in what you would get if he was to be promoted into EU politics. Just a capable red-taper.
October 7th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
There is always one thing you can expect from the dutch, to be worse then democrats in their devotion to form circular firing squads and criticising their own. Due to the fragmented political system his party, while the largest, only received 28% of the vote. So his natural constituency is significantly smaller then his natural opposition. It also skews older and centrist so you’ll meet few of his supporters online. This explains why most comments of the dutch here are derogatory instead of positive.
mescaline is mostly right. Balkenende lacks the natural presence and charisma of a Blair. His profile in office is rather weak, the previous two PM’s Kok, and Lubbers were significantly more visible in office and had a more prominent mark on their cabinets While JPB remains more in the back ground and is decidedly more consensus oriented.
A PM in the netherlands does not create his own cabinet, ministers are selected and subordinate to the house not the PM. The Prime minister is officially only first amongst equals and it’s control over the political agenda is weak compared to that position in other countries.
While uninspiring, JPB has reclaimed the central position the CDA originally had in dutch coalition making after the party spend a decade in the political wilderness and stayed in office while dependent on a succession of unstable or ill fitting coalition parters through a relatively unstable period in dutch history. Seeing that I don’t share his policies per-se I’d say his primary accomplishments are on the international diplomacy side. During his tenure overall international relations improved and within the EU in particular. This resulted in several high profile offices and some favourable EU legislation.
He would be a capable low key administrator and a diplomatic consensus-builder. Perfect for a technocratic EU and a presidential office without any real inherent power.
October 8th, 2009 at 3:27 am
Balkenende a seemingly talented politician?
He is not. Balkenende is weak and clueless.
The Netherlands have not had a decent government since 2001.
All four administrations he has led have failed. His first kabinet was a joke that lasted 86 days.
Please take him away from us!
October 8th, 2009 at 11:38 am
You’ve got to be joking me.
J.P. Balkenende is extremely unpopular in the Netherlands at the moment. He is an elitist bastard puppydog to the big bankers and hotshot worldpoliticians that only have one goal, power and money, just like Tony Blair.
The fact that you think in parties and left/right says a lot already, but considering the fact that European factions are very loosely committed groups that have very little to do with each other, and are hardly democratically controlled must mean something too.
October 8th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Add the fact that the Lisbon treaty was voted out by the Netherlands, and France and Ireland for that matter.
We want out of the EU. It is turning in to a new Soviet Union, instead of the beacon of democracy that they are trying to sell to the simple minded all over the world. The EU is not democratic, not for freedom, and not sincere in their efforts.
October 10th, 2009 at 5:31 am
Balkenende is part of the cabal that planned and executed an illegal invasion of a country that was no danger to the west (Iraq). He has consequently blocked any parliamentary investigation into the Dutch participation in the Iraq war. I don’t think we want a possible war-criminal for an EU president. Seriously (this also rules out Blair obviously).
October 11th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
[...] Middle East. But as a consumer, suppose I want to follow up on my notion that Jan Peter Balkenende would be a good candidate for the new office of EU [...]