BRUSSELS: It is time for José Manuel Barroso to start selling himself. His chances of being re-appointed as President of the European Commission depend on the case he makes.
Until the global financial crisis broke, Barroso looked fairly certain to get a second five-year term. Now, it is becoming increasingly hard to find diplomats or policymakers who support him. French President Nicolas Sarkozy is said to have been disappointed by Barroso’s performance during last autumn s financial meltdown, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel also seems to have fallen silent on the matter of his future.
No one doubts that Barroso is in an awkward position. The European Commission has few powers of its own with which to confront the recession as it spreads throughout the European Union; most powers belong to the European Central Bank. But the Commission does have a voice with which to rally people, and it is for their silence that Barroso and his fellow commissioners are being rebuked.
The perceived lack of leadership from the Commission at this time of deepening economic gloom is just the tip of the iceberg. The events of recent months have crystallized more deep-seated concerns.
When Barroso, the former Portuguese prime minister, was awarded the EU post by his fellow heads of government, he appeared to be a dynamic new broom who would sweep away the cobwebs left by his predecessor, Italy’s Romano Prodi. But, with the passage of time, the Barroso-led Commission has also come under fire for being unadventurous and lacklustre. Even before the clouds of recession began to gather, Euroskepticism was on the rise, with the Commission blamed, rightly or wrongly, for the EU’s failure “to reach out to the citizen.
The job of Commission President is arguably among the most difficult in the world. The institution has been in near-imperceptible decline for almost 20 years, thanks to the rise of the European Parliament and the way EU member governments have whittled away its authority while consolidating their own powers as the EU’s true legislators. Yet the head of the Commission is called upon to be the dynamic public face of Europe.
The Commission’s own internal culture of cautiousness and red tape is a constraint that nobody in Brussels much likes to talk about. It is not a structure that is conducive to political coups de theâtre, and most of the Commission’s work is the relentless grind of EU regulation and re-regulation. But the bottom line is that at a time when everyone is asking, “What is Europe doing? , the Commission’s responses have seemed inadequate.
For reasons that are now obscure, there is an unwritten rule that Commission presidents must be drawn from the ranks of past or current prime ministers. This has in large part accounted for Barroso’s high hopes of getting a second term. There was, it appeared, no other credible candidate to challenge him.
For his part, Barroso is widely seen as having avoided controversy throughout 2008 in order not to risk offending any governments that might have been inclined to block his reappointment. That seeming passivity is now his greatest problem.
France’s presidency of the EU during the second half of 2008 showed that dynamic leadership is a quality widely appreciated by the European public.
With his sense of showmanship, Sarkozy almost effortlessly eclipsed Barroso when handling the Russia-Georgia crisis in August, followed by the EU’s responses to the autumn crisis of cascading bank collapses. The Commission was left on the sidelines.
What is to be done? France’s successful presidency has intensified doubts about the effectiveness of the Commission and its president, so much so that even in Paris concerns are being voiced that the Brussels executive must somehow be strengthened if it is not to become a mere secretariat. EU governments have wanted a pliable Commission, but now the cost could be the death of the “community method that protects the EU against national frictions.
Barroso needs to respond to all these doubts. If he is to reassure EU national leaders that they should re-appoint him, then he needs to signal that his second term can hold out fresh promise. He is good at giving upbeat speeches, but this will not be enough. Some sort of plan is needed.
When he arrived in Brussels in 2004, Barroso was repeatedly asked whether he had a “big idea for Europe’s future. Back then, he did not need one to be appointed. This time, he must produce one if he is to save his skin.
Giles Merritt is Secretary General of the Brussels-based think tank Friends of Europe and is Editor of the policy journal Europe’s World. This commentary is published by DAILY NEWS EGYPT in collaboration with Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org).
