Name a Famous Belgian Nov 19Th 2009 | BRUSSELS from Economist.Com

The EU presidency

Name a famous Belgian Nov 19th 2009 | BRUSSELS From Economist.com

Two minor but competent figures will be president and high representative of the EU

Reuters

A MAN who has been Belgian prime minister for less than a year and a British technocrat who has never held elected office were chosen by European Union leaders on Thursday November 19th to represent their 27 countries around the world, and lead their policymaking at the highest level. It seems odd to appoint people as little-known as Herman Van Rompuy and Catherine Ashton to such big jobs.

For nearly a decade, EU politicians have been wrangling about a new rule book, calling for Europe to equip itself with leadership posts that would help their club to stride the world stage. Yet by the time national leaders arrived at a Brussels summit to fill the new posts of president of the European Council and EU foreign-policy chief, or high representative, their boasts and ambition were a sad memory.

The leaders went into the summit amid predictions that they might fail to reach agreement, after long rounds of telephone consultations between national governments had exposed differences about what the posts were even for. Britain had formally proposed that Tony Blair, an ex-prime minister, should be the first president, arguing that the job needed a heavyweight figure who could “stop the traffic” in Beijing or Washington, DC. Other countries, especially smaller ones, argued that the post should be modest, amounting to little more than a chairman of leaders’ summits.

The path was cleared for Mr Van Rompuy and Lady Ashton after the British government at last accepted what had been obvious for weeks: that there was scant support for Tony Blair, and there was near-consensus for a chairman-style presidential post. Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, threw in the towel at a gathering of fellow centre-left political leaders just before the main summit, accepting that Mr Blair’s candidacy was finished. In return, he bowed to a plan stitched up between pan-European socialists and the European People’s Party, the main conservative block in the EU, to give the council presidency to someone from the centre right and the foreign-policy job to the centre left.

In return for dropping Mr Blair, Mr Brown secured the foreign-policy post for Lady Ashton, a career Labour party technocrat who has served as the EU's trade commissioner since October 2008. Although Britain is normally seen as an awkward customer in EU affairs, resisting deeper political integration, it has traditionally been rather open to European countries pooling their diplomatic and military clout on a case-by-case basis, to gain global influence. That meant that several important countries were prepared to give the foreign-policy post to a British candidate, if that might lock in British support for much more ambitious developments in diplomacy and foreign policy. David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, had been the first choice of many leaders for the EU post. For a while, he appeared tempted, but eventually decided to stay in British politics and focus on domestic ambitions, rumoured to include the leadership of the Labour Party.

The British deal on Lady Ashton meant that centre-right governments, led by France and Germany, were free to impose their favoured candidate, Mr Van Rompuy. There was also swift agreement on a Swedish-drafted plan to limit the president’s powers, more or less excluding any foreign-policy role for the new chief.

Mr Van Rompuy, a haiku-writing ascetic and devout Roman Catholic, has little experience of EU summitry, but years of training in the management of fractious partners, thanks to long service in multilingual coalition Belgian governments. Even his own officials admit he has little charisma.

Lady Ashton came to Brussels from a career spent as a Labour Party appointee, rising smoothly through ever more senior posts in British public bodies, health authorities and education agencies. Appointed a life peer in the House of Lords, she held junior ministerial posts before becoming leader of the upper house of Parliament, a big job with cabinet status, where she earned a reputation as a shrewd political manager. Ironically, one of her biggest coups in the eyes of her political masters was shepherding the Lisbon Treaty through the House of Lords, paving the way for the creation of the job she now holds: a thought that cannot possibly have occurred to her at the time. Even as she accepted a bouquet of flowers and the congratulations of EU leaders, Lady Ashton appeared rather stunned at becoming, in effect, Europe’s foreign minister. She has no experience of foreign affairs, though she has earned respect, it is said, from trade negotiators as EU commissioner.

Two lessons can be drawn from the selection of these new top officials. Europe’s national leaders are not ready to share the world stage with real rivals. With the Lisbon Treaty, those same national leaders have also ceded far more power than they realised to pan-European political parties, who imposed on them the deal dividing up the two posts, backed by the threat that nominees not to their liking would not be approved by the European Parliament in a vote early next year. Not all national governments are happy about the apparent shift of power: expect tussles as national leaders attempt to push back.