A year has passed since José Manuel Barroso inherited the poisoned chalice of the presidency of the European commission. Since then, neither Jacques Chirac nor Gerhard Schröder has bothered to conceal his contempt for the diminutive Portuguese right-winger. But now a group of top commission officials has turned against their president. They are furious over his admission that the constitutional treaty will not be implemented in the next few years. Outside Brussels, of course, that is a statement of the obvious. But inside the commission, such statements reveal a treacherously Anglo-Saxon worldview. Barroso keeps repeating that his priorities are the Lisbon process of economic reform and making the EU more relevant to the lives of ordinary Europeans. But the more federalist commission officials find such talk tedious. "Barroso has no vision or ambition; he is afraid to take on the governments, and he is not interested in ideas," complains one director general. What the governments in Paris and Berlin—as well as many senior commission officials—agree upon is that Barroso is just too British. The only time he gets really excited is when waxing lyrical about the benefits that would flow from passing the services directive—a liberalising measure that France and Germany have blocked.
How dead is the constitution?
If Barroso and London are wrong to consider the constitution a corpse, what is the plan for it? There has been muttered criticism of Britain's presidency of the EU for failing to discuss just that, even though this is supposedly a "period of reflection." Olli Rehn, the enlargement commissioner, argues that the constitution may be in place before Croatia joins the EU (perhaps around 2009-10). He has not elaborated on how he plans to overcome the minor problems of referendum "no" votes in France and the Netherlands. But the Austrians, who take over the EU presidency in January, may find themselves trying to assuage those who want to revive it. No fewer than 13 countries have ratified the constitution (two more are expected to do so soon), and some of them want the others to plough on. If 20 ratify, runs the theory, they might be able to get the European council to continue with the project. That would force the French into a repeat referendum and isolate any other nay-sayers. But in the current climate it would be a brave government anywhere in Europe that called another referendum. So talk among the diehards is shifting to a new plan: consult the public, then come up with a new—but similar—text for 2009. In fact, only when the ratification process is abandoned formally can the real issue be addressed: which of the more useful aspects of the document can be extracted and placed in a treaty rather than a constitution?
No celebrations at Hampton Court
When Angela Merkel, the German CDU leader, was riding high in the polls in the summer, the idea was that Blair, Merkel and Barroso would use the Hampton Court summit of the EU presidency at the end of October as a platform to reinvigorate the moribund Lisbon agenda and step up the momentum for economic reform. Though she finally won the top job, the inconclusive German election has denied Merkel her reforming mandate. At a commission seminar about the future of the EU just after the German elections, Barroso looked like as a man from underneath whom a large rug had been pulled according to one commission official. The final stages of the Polish elections raise questions about the appetite for reform even in countries where the centre-right is on the march. In the parliamentary contest, the economically liberal Civic Platform party lost a comfortable lead to finish second after the more populist Law and Justice party homed in on voters' fears about radical economic change. All of which makes the ideological debate on economic policy, structural reform and social policy as neuralgic as ever. Little wonder that the Hampton Court summit has been demoted to a one-day, rather than a proper overnight, event.
John Grant gets undiplomatic
Few were happier at the decision to proceed with Turkey EU membership talks than John Grant, British ambassador to the EU. Our man in Brussels, normally the most polished of souls, has been out of sorts recently and was even heard to direct an extremely undiplomatic expletive towards press criticism of the British presidency. Grant's sensitivity was strange, since the report he was so cross about centred on complaints of heavy-handed security and a lack of internet access at an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Newport. Though he graciously made a formal apology to the Brussels press corps, few had expected Sir John to devote personal attention to the installation of phone lines in Wales. It turns out that the reason for the ill humour lies in good old-fashioned Whitehall in-fighting. Frustrated by the continually postponed move to No 10, mandarins at the treasury have been busying themselves in their traditional manner: slagging off the foreign office. Naturally they were the first to highlight the organisational problems in Newport. When the treasury managed to arrange its informal meeting of EU finance ministers in Manchester without mishap, the gloating was something to behold.
