Quattrocentist

Leaders

Europe's motley(丑角) leaders
Behold(瞧), two mediocre(平凡的) miceNov 26th 2009
From The Economist print edition

The European Union’s choices for its new top jobs reveal a pitiful(可鄙的) lack of global ambition.
EPA

THE Roman poet Horace might have been summing up today’s European Union when he wrote that “the mountains will be in labour, and will give birth to a ridiculous mouse.” By choosing two virtual unknowns, with paltry(不足取的) political experience, as the first permanent president of the European Council and as the new EU foreign-policy supremo(主管), Europe’s leaders have made their union look ridiculous.

Both Belgium’s Herman Van Rompuy and Britain’s Catherine Ashton are decent in their way. Mr Van Rompuy has been a surprisingly effective Belgian prime minister, holding his fissiparous(有分裂傾向的
) country together well enough for some to fret over(操煩) his departure from domestic politics. Lady Ashton piloted the Lisbon treaty through the British House of Lords(上議院) and has handled the European Commission’s trade portfolio(部長[大臣]) without falling out with(吵架) her colleagues (unlike some predecessors), even if she has no foreign-policy background and has never been elected to anything. Both are suited(合適的) to the endless rounds of consensus(共識)-building that the EU loves and lives by.

That alone is enough for some Europhiles(親歐盟者) to welcome these appointments. Yet they miss two points. The first is that the Van Rompuy-Ashton team was manifestly(顯然地) nobody’s dream ticket. Mr Van Rompuy emerged(出現) only because weightier and better-known candidates, including Britain’s Tony Blair, fell foul of(冒犯) the objections(異議) of one leader or another. Lady Ashton was the third or even fourth choice of Gordon Brown when Britain was offered the post(職位). Picking people for their inoffensiveness, inexperience (both have been in their jobs for only a year), party affiliation(入黨), nationality or sex—everything, in fact, except their abilities—is unlikely to lead to the best candidates.

The second mistake is to overlook(忽略) the aims of the Lisbon treaty. Laboriously pushed through after six years (and three rejections by referendum(公民投票)), it seeks to give the EU a political role in the world to match its economic weight. The permanent council president replaces the present confusing system that appoints a new president from among EU members every six months. The new high representative(代表) for foreign policy will have a portfolio (and budget(預算)) in the European Commission as well as a large “diplomatic” service. The idea is that the EU should become both more powerful and more accessible for America, China, India and elsewhere.

But it is hard to see the political leaders of America, China and India, or even their foreign ministers, ever taking Mr Van Rompuy and Lady Ashton entirely seriously. Instead they will talk, as now, to their counterparts(相對) in big countries like Germany, France and Britain. That will largely vitiate(貶損) any notion of the EU at last speaking with one voice, or of answering the famously mythical(虛構杜撰的) Kissinger question about whom to call when an outsider(局外人) wants to talk to Europe.

Now every inoffensive Belgian can dream of something

It is just as hard to believe that Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Nicolas Sarkozy wanted such an outcome(結果) when they first resurrected(恢復) the Lisbon treaty from the bones of the EU constitution. They accepted it now mainly to preserve their own grip(掌握) on the EU. Many Eurosceptics(歐盟懷疑論者) argue similarly, because they prefer nation-states to Brussels. Yet in truth a weak council president and foreign-policy boss will boost the more federalist(聯邦主義者) actors on the EU stage: the European Commission and its president, José Manuel Barroso, and especially the European Parliament. Indeed, the biggest winners in this, as from the Lisbon treaty itself, are the European Parliament and its pan-European(泛歐洲) parties—despite their feeble(軟弱的) democratic mandate(授權,委任). It is enough to make you wonder, yet again, if the treaty was worth ratifying(批准) at all.




[ 本帖最後由 qwers00033269 於 2009-12-2 21:03 編輯 ]

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