Brussels diary

Now that the Irish have said yes to Lisbon, what happens next? An orgy of infighting
October 21, 2009

As Prospect went to press, Eurosceptic Czech President Vaclav Klaus was still dragging his heels over the Lisbon treaty. Nevertheless, the Irish “yes” vote has given a real boost to Brussels—and to Tony Blair’s hopes of becoming EU president.

So, if Klaus can be brought round, what next? One of the few selling points of the Lisbon treaty is its promise to streamline the EU’s ramshackle foreign policy structures. Well, maybe. The treaty combines the posts of foreign policy chief—now Javier Solana—and European foreign affairs commissioner, currently Benita Ferrero-Waldner. The new foreign policy supremo, who will represent the interests of member states, will also be a vice president of the European commission. Placing someone representing national governments at the heart of the commission was guaranteed to produce an orgy of infighting and that has now begun in earnest.

Among Eurocrats, the burning question is what will happen to the jobs of foreign policy officials. Logic would suggest that the new supremo should have one cabinet but there is already a rearguard action to keep two—both Solana’s, currently based in the European council’s building, and Ferrero-Waldner’s, across the road in the European commission’s headquarters.



Another question is who will end up in charge of the shiny new foreign policy structure which includes a European diplomatic service. Here a standoff is looming between two of the Eurocracy’s biggest beasts: Robert Cooper, Solana’s key foreign policy aide and a former British diplomat (and a Prospect contributor) and the commission’s new director general of external relations, Joao Vale de Almeida.

Portuguese Vale de Almeida was chef de cabinet of José Manuel Barroso, the European commission president, but will now be the commission’s top foreign policy official. His nomination is one of several pre-emptive changes designed to give the commission the upper hand against the council. The plan is to ensure that when the time comes to work out who does what in foreign policy, the commission has staff in key places with long mandates to serve.

And Barroso is contemplating another reform: the creation of foreign policy commissioners to work with the new supremo. This, of course, would keep more foreign policy in the hands of the commission.

SOLANA'S LEGACY Solana is said to be clinging to the vain hope that he will be prevailed upon to stay on. Though he has already announced that he will step down, the former Spanish foreign minister and Nato secretary general is a workaholic with no new job to go to.

But Solano’s legacy is no better than mixed. Thousands of airmiles in travel to the middle east have failed to boost the EU’s clout there. Solana also took on the job of interlocutor with Iran over nuclear issues while the US refused to speak to Tehran. Now there are signs that the US is gearing up for fresh talks and even Europeans accept that Tehran sees negotiation with the EU as second best to chats in the White House. One European official likens the experience of talking to the Iranians to an annoying cocktail party conversation. “Mentally, they seem to be looking over your shoulder to see if there is someone more important in the room to talk to.”

PITY THE EUROCRATS

Many Eurocrats have been miserable for a long time. The uncertainty that surfaces every five years when the commission reaches the end of its term in office has been exacerbated by the travails of the Lisbon treaty. “It’s been dreadful for months,” said one senior official. “No one is doing anything, my commissioner is completely distracted over his future, nothing on the dossier is moving at all.” This malaise recently caught up with the press department, which forgot to produce a routine briefing note for the EU-Brazil summit—prompting a big inquest. The row ended, however, when one official pointed out that none of the press seemed to have noticed.

FAME! I'M GONNA LIVE FOREVER All good diplomats are actors, but Howard Gutman really is one. Before becoming one of the US’s three ambassadors in Brussels (there are also separate representatives to the EU and Nato) Gutman was a lawyer with a sideline in drama. He appears in a new Hollywood film of the 1980s television series Fame, about the New York academy for the performing arts. Gutman has a cameo as a butcher from Brooklyn. Sadly, the film flopped.