The EU institutions' two-minute silence to commemorate the victims of the London bombs was a shambolic affair. José Barroso, commission president, was in China and received a frantic text message from his staff, telling him to stop whatever he was doing and be quiet for a couple of minutes. So the most senior person present at the two-minute silence outside the Berlaymont, the commission's HQ, was Franco Frattini, the commissioner for justice, freedom and security. Gathered around him was a small crowd of about 100 civil servants and journalists. David O'Sullivan, the commission's secretary-general, who was marshalling the "crowd," was heard to mutter to a colleague, "this is a bit of an embarrassment." Certainly few passers-by seemed aware of the solemn nature of what was going on; drinks continued to be served on the pavement outside the pub opposite. It seems unlikely that any disrespect was intended. It is just that the EU authorities do not seem to have mastered how to stage such ceremonies. The three-minute silence that was held to commemorate the Madrid bombings took place on a traffic island in the middle of the Schuman roundabout. But nobody had thought to stop the traffic, or to signal when the silence was meant to begin and end. Judged by those standards, the "London silence" was better organised, although the turnout was smaller. Let us hope that the commission does not get too many opportunities to improve its staging of ceremonies like this.
Brilliant but baffling Blair
The charm of Tony Blair may have worn off for many Britons a long time ago. But give the man a fresh audience and he can still be astonishingly effective. His speech to the European parliament on 23rd June was a triumph. Blair had been set up to fail. He had been widely blamed in the rest of Europe for the collapse of the EU summit the previous week; Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg, who had chaired the summit, received a standing ovation in the parliament the day before Blair spoke, after a direct attack on the British government. But Blair pitched his speech perfectly. His tone was intelligent and non-confrontational. His use of the rhetoric of modernisation went down well. The trouble is that many in Brussels are now concluding that the Blair speech was just that—rhetoric. His demand that the EU refocus its spending on science and research—and cut agricultural subsidies—had been well received in the parliament. But when the British unveiled new proposals for the EU budget a few weeks later, people were baffled. The biggest cuts proposed came out of the research budget, and there was no serious suggestion to scale back spending on agriculture.
Tony the Red
The commitment to budget reform may not have been the only fake thing about Blair's speech to the European parliament. At one point in the address, he paid artful tributes to the leaders of the main parliamentary factions. When it was the turn of Danny Cohn-Bendit—now the leader of the Greens, and once the leader of the Paris student revolts of 1968—Blair turned to him and said: "I used to listen to your speeches, now you listen to mine." This drew good-natured laughter from Cohn-Bendit. But it sounds like another of those weird embellishments of his past life that Blair is prone to, like his claim to have once watched Jackie Milburn play for Newcastle. Cohn-Bendit's moment of speech-making fame was brief. He was deported to Germany, shortly after the Paris student revolt. And in May 1968, Tony Blair was 15 years old and at school in Edinburgh. Unless Danny the Red's speeches were broadcast live from the Paris barricades into the junior common room at Fettes College, it seems highly unlikely that the young Tony Blair listened to them.
The Carole Caplin factor
Direct instructions have been received from Downing Street to be much tougher on two directives wending their way through the European bureaucracy—the traditional herbal medicinal products directive and the food supplements directive. British diplomats wondered whether this could have anything to do with the fact that one of the most prominent British opponents of both directives is Carole Caplin, Cherie Blair's "lifestyle guru."
The Gillingham conspiracy
Does the proximity of Kent to the channel make men of Kent more favourable to the EU? There is certainly a strange concentration of Gillingham FC supporters in the upper reaches of the European bureaucracy. Gillingham are not one of Europe's more glamorous sides, but they are the most successful football team based in Kent (which is not saying much, admittedly). In Brussels their supporters include Jonathan Faull, director general of the justice, freedom and security department, Paul Reiderman, a close adviser to Javier Solana, Jonathan Todd, the commission's spokesman on competition, and Andy Bounds, the FT's Brussels diarist. The Eurocracy is often accused of being controlled by different sorts of cabal—members of Opus Dei, or graduates of the College of Europe, for example—but Gillingham supporters?
After four years as our Manneken Pis correspondent, Gideon Rachman is sadly leaving Brussels. Thank you Gideon.
