Gordon Brown was always regarded with suspicion in Brussels and now he's a lame-duck premier to boot. But he still has one thing going for him in Europe: he's not David Cameron.
With a Conservative victory in the next British general election looking inevitable, pro-Europeans are beginning to worry about what it will mean for them. Some diehard integrationists in the European parliament believed that when it came down to it, Cameron would not pull his MEPs out of the centre-right bloc, the EPP-ED (European People's party and European Democrats), in search of more Eurosceptic allies. Now he has done so, to the displeasure of Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy.
But more worrying for supporters of the "project" is the role that Cameron could play in killing off the Lisbon treaty. One scenario is that Brown might be driven from power before the end of the year, precipitating a general election. Cameron's manifesto will contain a pledge to hold a referendum on the Lisbon treaty providing it is not already in force when he comes to power. No one thinks that such a referendum would result in a "yes." With the treaty on hold until the autumn, when the Irish vote, a British election around that time could mark its death knell.
Pro-Europeans hope that Brown can hold out through the autumn, keeping Cameron at bay until the treaty is ratified. The worst he could do then would be to have some sort of vague referendum on regaining powers from Brussels—one that could cause him problems if he wound up so much Eurosceptic sentiment that it fuelled calls for Britain's withdrawal from the EU.
But what really spooks pro-Europeans is the prospect of an alliance between Cameron and Vaclav Klaus, the maverick Eurosceptic president of the Czech Republic. Klaus has shown his disdain for the European project by manoeuvring to bring down the Czech government even though it held the presidency of the EU. As Czech president he has to sign the Lisbon treaty for it to come into force and he intends to wait until the last possible moment. For supporters of Lisbon the nightmare scenario is that, even if the Irish vote "yes," Klaus finds a pretext to delay signing the treaty—until Cameron can come to power and wreck it.
Topolanek lets it all hang out
The chaotic Czechs continued to amuse even in the final weeks of their hapless presidency. The main figure of fun remains Mirek Topolanek, who as prime minister berated Barack Obama's fiscal stimulus package as the "road to hell" a few days before the US president paid his visit to Prague in April. Topolanek's government had just collapsed, throwing the EU presidency into confusion and requiring a complete change of ministers. Since his ousting from power, photos of Topolanek have been published in the Spanish daily El Pais showing him naked at the Sardinian villa of Silvio Berlusconi. Though furious, Topolanek has not denied that he was there or even that he had his kit off by the pool, though he says the pictures were doctored. That is probably because the images give the impression that the centre-right Czech politician was in a state of some arousal when he was snapped. However, he might yet have his revenge on the sniggering Eurocrats. If he loses the next general election in the Czech Republic, expected in the autumn, Topolanek will probably be back in Brussels—but this time as a commissioner.
Eastern european energy wars
Eastern Europe is at war over the right to host an obscure new EU agency for energy regulators called Acer. Slovenia, Slovakia and Romania all say that they are desperate to host a body that will discuss such exciting issues as the "unbundling" of electricity transmission networks. In pursuing the money and employment spin-offs that come from these EU outposts they are simply copying the established countries, which have often stopped at nothing in their pursuit of pork barrel. Berlusconi famously once blocked a food safety agency going to Helsinki and insisted it went instead to Parma, claiming that Finns didn't even know what prosciutto was. It was a two-year battle which held up the launch of nine other EU agencies.
In the contest over Acer, Romania's candidature has not been difficult for its rivals to undermine. After all, would you trust the Romanians with your money? The Slovenians think they have hit on the ideal argument against the agency going to Bratislava, claiming that the Slovaks opposed energy liberalisation in key ministerial votes. Yet the fear in Ljubljana is that they could win the briefing war but still lose the contest. "Even heads of government confuse Slovenia and Slovakia," groaned one diplomat. "It would just be our luck for them to write down the wrong name."
Officials lost for words
With European commission president José Manuel Barroso now almost certain of a second term, there is relief among key aides on the presidential floor of the Berlaymont building; they can now begin jockeying for top jobs in the next mandate. On the floors below, officials have been tasked with an important duty. The order has gone out to compile a bilan—or list of achievements—of the Barroso commission. It may, joked one official, be the only short document the commission has ever produced.
