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The wrong man for the EU job

— Photo: AP

Tony Blair… does he qualify?

For the moment, no haze of nostalgia hangs over Tony Blair. Three election victories have vanished from memory — we only remember Iraq and the snuggles with Bush. They, like his opponents of old, seem to have little good to say about him. “War criminal” is about as polite as it gets. Only luxuriously-paid jobs with international banks with more money than sense bring a little financial sunshine to the Blair breakfast table.

Is this the guy we want to be first president of the European Council of Ministers?

Nicolas Sarkozy seems to think so. Tony himself may or may not be interested, which probably means he is. And though Blair’s successor Gordon Brown may not be dithering, he sucks a baleful thumb. That William Hague joke about Prezza Tone’s car sweeping into Downing Street was a shaft too far.

Let’s be clear, however. It’s a terrible idea (though not for the usual reasons evinced). You can overdo the hatred and hand-washings over blunders past. Iraq has been a ghastly mess and George W. Bush a ghastly commander-in-chief, but the big western nation that stood ostentatiously to one side — France — now jostles to the head of the White House cheerleading queue.

From Sarajevo to Freetown, Blair isn’t always a dirty word. (And some of our shrewder commentators note how Brown is quietly embracing his domestic ideas, too.) There will, in time, be a better legacy.

But what would he bring to a role like this for a mere 30 months? The eloquence of a supremely polished performer, the rush and gush of supposed European passion, the ability to meet and greet whoever turns up in the Oval Office next time. Outside these shores, he’s still a big hitter, a name and grin winning instant recognition. Putting him into bat first as the voice of 27 nation states would guarantee all a hearing. And he, said to be ready to push aside that bank loot at the drop of an invitation, thinks he has a lot left to say.

The difficulty, as he ought to know, is that this isn’t the job that he helped negotiate. What’s needed is much more mundane than that. Just as it’s stupidly wasteful to see the European parliament traipse wearily from Strasbourg to Brussels and back, so it has become similarly dispiriting to watch the torch of temporary leadership passed from hand to hand 27 times.

There’s a huge disparity in the diplomatic resources available. (Just compare Slovenia now with the clout of France coming next.) There’s also an inevitable wambling of the agenda in a regional dance of special interests, when some far bigger questions — say, immigration policy — need consistent endeavour.

Thus the Lisbon treaty creates a chairman for two-and-a-half years who can help keep the union (which means ministers from member states, because that’s what the council is) focused on tasks and timetables for decisions.

This “presidency” is much the same as the present, perambulating presidency, except that it doesn’t lose the plot in a suitcase somewhere between Ljubljana and Paris. It is more like the Swiss system of rotating prime ministers (and nobody outside Switzerland needs to remember who’s PM anyway).

That’s the specification here, a rather non-grand spec for future bureaucratic action. Must be proven administrator; will need conciliation skills, stamina and extra helpings of humility; high public profile not a handicap (when it comes to kicking Latvia or Slovakia behind the arras) but tact and resilience valued above any other traits. Is that Blair past or Blair present? Not remotely. He can’t be self-effacing. His administrative legacy is a civil service that loses as many laptops as plots. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

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