IT’S GETTING back to normal business for the European Council, the EU’s leading institution, since Ireland’s vote in favour of the Lisbon Treaty, whose passage has preoccupied its leaders for so long. Following agreement on an opt-out for the Czechs from the Charter of Fundamental Rights they are expected to ratify Lisbon next week. This meeting clarified who is likely to become the council’s new president, its foreign policy representative and the commission members, together with their respective roles. Yesterday’s deal on the EU’s climate change negotiating position, along with statements on financial regulation, Iran and Afghanistan illustrate how urgent that is.
The new leadership positions will be decided on in a couple of weeks and their political shape is rapidly emerging. Since centre-right parties now rule most EU states, the European Council president will come from that political family and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security will go to the centre-left. There is a clear preference for someone from a smaller member state for the presidency and for it to be a relatively limited, behind-the-scenes co-ordinating role. That would give a stronger profile to the foreign policy job which would probably be filled by a candidate from a large member state. Such a political balance makes good political sense. It would allow the EU’s international profile develop with the least tension between these ill-defined roles.
Ireland’s interest in who is chosen has been stimulated by the Lisbon debates and now by nominations for these positions. Since another political reality is that current leaders are preferred by their colleagues, this gives figures like the Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkanende or the recent Austrian chancellor Wolfgang Schussel an advantage over former taoiseach John Bruton who launched his bid to become president of the council this week. But his political skills, boundless energy and five years’ experience as EU ambassador in Washington put Mr Bruton deservedly in the frame if this remains a genuinely open competition. He should have the Government’s unqualified support.
One drawback for him is that should British foreign secretary David Miliband prove to be a serious candidate for the foreign policy job, there would be a definite preference for a non-Anglophone appointment as president now that Tony Blair is being ruled out. Taoiseach Brian Cowen must nominate Ireland’s new commissioner without delay, choosing a figure with the maximum political weight to gain an influential job.
The EU negotiating stance on climate change for December’s Copenhagen summit contains a firm commitment to international aid from the richest states most responsible for carbon emissions to poorer ones and to 50 per cent public funding. But this meeting disappointingly failed to overcome disagreements on internal EU financing of the new regime. A lot more effort needs to be put into resolving this disagreement if the EU is to live up to its proclaimed world leadership role on curbing global warming.