Peter Jones: Like it or not, Blair looks like right man for job

Published on Tuesday 27 October 2009 21:30

'WELCOME Mr President" – words that William Hague, the Conservative foreign affairs spokesman cheekily but perhaps accurately observed would stick in the throat of Gordon Brown should he ever have to receive Tony Blair as the European Union's president in Downing Street.

The prospect that this may become a reality is getting ever closer, as the Czech government moves towards being the 27th and last signatory of the Lisbon Treaty, which will create the post of EU president. And with Mr Blair apparently being touted for the post by the British, German, and French governments, he looks to be a strong favourite for the job.

Some react with complete horror at the prospect. After all, this looks to even those disinterested in EU politics as confirmation that an EU superstate, which will render national governments and parliaments as impotent sideshows, is being created. And many believe the idea that Tony Blair, the man who ignored European and British public opinion to side with US president George Bush and send British troops into the Iraq war, should be in charge of this political behemoth is monstrous.

Actually, the job description posted on the EU's website doesn't seem to match this view. Here it is: "The European Council, which has the role of driving EU policy-making, now becomes a full EU institution. Although it will not gain any new powers, it will be headed by a newly created position of president. Elected by the European Council for 2 years, the main job of the president will be to prepare the council's work, ensure its continuity and work to secure consensus among member countries."

Though the European Council – the twice-yearly meeting of the EU member states' heads of government – is the most important EU institution, this makes its president sound not much more than a paper-pushing bureaucrat condemned to shuttle endlessly between 27 European capitals, vainly trying to achieve agreement on not very important matters. The reality, as is usually the case, is somewhere between these two extremes and, as is almost always the case, the job will be as important as the post-holder makes it. And that's the point of considering Mr Blair for it.

The EU, after a decade of controversial navel-gazing about its internal structures, has the opportunity to move on. The Lisbon Treaty, though it does not meet the aspirations of the most ardent Europhiles, gets rid of a lot of the cholesterol blocking EU arteries. It provides a political foundation for tackling the real and serious problems of our times – climate change, economic reconstruction, migration, an end to conflict in the Middle East, security of energy supplies and the related question of establishing a secure relationship with Russia and its energy resources.

I have long been of the opinion that resolution of all these matters is too big a task for the individual European nations to tackle on their own or by ad-hoc diplomatic agreement between groups of nations. The EU offers much the most promising framework for all the EU nations to achieve much, though not everything, to our British and Scottish national advantage.

But, pre-Lisbon Treaty, the EU has simply not had the influence on the international stage that a group of nations with a fifth of the world's wealth ought to have had. Obtaining that influence requires that the first EU president be a person of substantial political weight, capable of commanding recognition in international capitals.

Many would argue Mr Blair's support for the Iraq war makes him a figure of distrust rather than respect, and thus he should be ruled out of the EU presidency. If that were true, however, he would never have been appointed special envoy to the Middle East of the Quartet – the United Nations, the EU, Russia and the United States. Reports suggest he is held in high regard by the Palestinians, not least because of his key role in preventing Serbian genocide of Muslims in Kosovo.

He may not have achieved much as special envoy, but that's largely because the Quartet have ruled out talking to Hamas until it renounces violence and acknowledges the right of Israel to exist. In the meantime, the vast amount of talking he has done to all the various parties, plus the reporting back to the Quartet, must have given him a pretty unique understanding not just of the Middle East but also of the international politics that surrounds it.

Two other things may count more heavily against Mr Blair's candidacy. The first is that the Lisbon Treaty, while it has cleared central EU arteries, has strengthened the pulses of national and the European parliaments in the say they have on EU affairs.

A sign this is being taken as a serious change is that a number of European governments have been saying privately that the Conservative opposition to Mr Blair's candidacy is a problem that cannot be ignored.

It is a strange fact that the rest of Europe, while it endures endless abuse from the British, would still like us to be a rather more committed member of the EU family. And, much of Europe thinks, if EU president Blair makes the problem of an EU-hostile Conservative government even worse, then perhaps someone else should get the job.

I rather think the Tory anti-Blair talk is moved much more by gut Europhobia than by personality politics. But the personal element of the critique does raise the second problem: that Mr Blair does not just have a presidential style, but a presidential way of operating. The new Labour government was infamous for sidelining Cabinet decision-making in favour of sofa government. This was a reflection of his impatient desire to get things done quickly. While that, to some extent, is possible with the British government, it is impossible with EU government.

Achieving an EU view for an EU president to represent abroad still requires near-unanimity from 27 member states. Thus, the EU tends to move with glacial slowness.

This will not suit Mr Blair at all. But if he can find a way of channelling his undoubted energy, he still is the person most likely to move the EU forward to the benefit of all its citizens.