Blair, Europe, power and legitimacy
Posted by liberalstranger on October 25, 2009
So speculation is mounting as to whether Tony Blair will – or should - become the first president of the European Council. Of course it’s a bit difficult to reach a position on whether or not this is a good thing as no-one seems to know exactly what the job will look like.
But then that’s the problem. When you have a job – like the Prime Minister of the UK – that essentially moulds itself to the holder’s personality, you’d better be damn careful you get the right person in there. Now I’m not the greatest fan of Tony Blair, but as a statesman he was impressive. We may cry “Iraq!” and we are right to do so, but I think history will be kinder to him on his foreign policy record than current critics (his domestic record is another matter). If you want to see what I mean, you only have to compare Blair’s dynamism and energy with his plodding, depressing successor. As a face of the UK, I know which I would rather have.
But all that dynamism and energy are the exact reasons why Blair should not be president of the European Council. He is a man convinced the world needs his services, whether rightly or wrongly, and one thing he would never stomach is a ceremonial role. He would want impact and influence and he would want it in multiple areas. He would want, need to be president of a powerful and important foreign policy player.
But the EU is not and should not be any such organisation. 27 member states with fundamentally differing interests simply cannot reach a meaningful common position on most foreign policy issues. Nor is it desirable that they do so: the institution as a whole lacks legitimacy, a proper mandate or any real demos. Blair was accused of leading us into wars without a proper mandate because the vagaries of the British electoral system meant most people did not vote for him. At the head of the EU, he would be no less gung-ho but a good deal less legitimate. At a time when the EU is probably less liked by its citizens than at any time since its creation, do we really want to be making things even more difficult?
None of this, by the way, means I am anti-EU. I just think it is high time the political and bureaucratic elite stopped focusing their energies on boosting their own egos by making their behemoth baby even more all-encompassing, and started to address the longstanding concerns of European people about the Union’s democratic legitimacy and wastefulness. While they are at it, a half-decent PR campaign to explain to people the benefits of the EU (of which there are plenty) would not go amiss.
Such internal house-ordering is not going to be the responsibility of the president of the European Council. But electing a man like Tony Blair to that office will not only aggravate people like me who think the EU has gone way too far in the direction of political union. It will ensure that attention is distracted from what should be the priority business of the EU - wining back the support of European voters.
