Mandy's rave reception
This may come as a surprise in post-ideological Britain, but Europe's lefties were delighted to learn that Peter Mandelson is to be Blair's man on the new team bringing Europe's stodgy old Party of European Socialists (PES) into the broad, sunlit uplands of the third way. After Mandy began his rip-roaring speech to the Socialist International Council in Oslo with the word "comrades," they now believe that underneath the smooth PR exterior beats a heart of honest red. "I lost count of the number of times he used the word socialism," reports one enthusiastic Swedish minister.
Word of Mandy's rave reception quickly seeped through to a very cross deputy prime minister in London, who demanded to know why the invitation to address the comrades had not been given to the real keeper of the red flag in New Labour. "You were invited, but turned it down," John Prescott was told.
Santer plan wrecked
Prescott should not raise his euro-hopes. The idea for a new super-council of the deputy prime ministers of the 15 member states, floated by commission president Jacques Santer, has run into trouble. Coordination between Brussels and national governments was always intended to be run by the General Affairs Council. This consists of the 15 foreign ministers-who have been preoccupied with a full foreign policy agenda, so the coordination has suffered, particularly during the six months of Robin Cook's chairmanship. But Austria has now taken over the presidency from Britain, and foreign minister Wolfgang Sch?ssel-with robust backing from Robin Cook and other foreign ministers-is determined to revitalise the GAC and stop the Santer plan.
Copy-cat socialists
Blair is prepared to take the Party of European Socialists seriously because he expects Gerhard Schr?der, the Social Democrat, to replace Helmut Kohl in the September election. This will leave Spain as the only exception in a centre-left Europe. The Germans are equally keen; they have put their Bundestag leader, Rudolf Scharping, on to the third way planning group with Mandelson. For the Germans, PES can only grow in importance because it is the centre-left's umbrella group in the European parliament. The German SPD watched the cunning way in which Kohl used the conservative counterpart to PES, the European People's Party, to rally transnational support for his positions before EU summits, and have resolved to do the same.
The EPP are also regrouping. They lured William Hague to their last pre-summit gathering. Kohl, Hague and Spain's Jos? Mar?a Aznar bullied the wet Christian Democrats of Benelux into accepting Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia into their ranks. It looks as though a serious two-party system could be emerging-just as the ratification of the Amsterdam treaty begins to endow the parliament with much wider powers.
Anthem competition
Forget the "Ode to Joy." The latest anthem to be adopted in Europe has just been approved by the parliament of Wallonia, the French-speaking half of Belgium. It goes:
We are proud of our Wallonia.
All the world adores our children.
Nobody can beat our industry.
And our culture is admired by all.
Unimpressed? Then try your hand at the new anthem for Bosnia-Herzegovina. Fresh from designing a flag, passports and new number plates for the improbable state, Carlos Westendorp, the international community's proconsul in Sarajevo, has launched an open competition for the new song. Just think of the royalties every time it gets played.
Jacques Sancerre
Three small hiccups have disturbed the progress of Spain's former prime minister, Felipe Gonz?les, into the next commission presidency. The first is griping on the diplomatic circuit about Brussels being turned into a high-security anti-terrorist zone. Presumably Felipe will emerge unscathed from the scandal about the dirty war against Basque terrorists; but ETA are not the types to forgive or forget. And Brussels has not forgotten the security fuss, 20 years ago, when an IRA unit took a potshot at British commissioner Christopher Tugendhat. The second hiccup came from a British junior minister who pondered whether Blair might want to block Felipe unless there is a settlement on Gibraltar. The third is sudden speculation that Santer is ready to do battle for a second term. If so, he had better cut down on toasts at lunch. Both at the US-EU summit in London and after the Cardiff summit, Blair began rolling his eyes as the post-prandial and rubicund Santer went on and on and on. Was it just a slip of the tongue that caused Alastair Campbell to call him "Jacques Sancerre"?
