Some weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal, not always a fan, touted the candidacy of Tony Blair for the new position of EU president, making the point that all of the other candidates in sight were clearly Lilliputians. Well now they’ve done it: after agonizing indecision and backroom, low-life maneuvering the EU pooh-bahs have chosen—a Lilliputian, in the person of Herman Van Rompuy, the Belgian prime minister. Henry Kissinger famously complained several decades ago that the main problem with dealing with our European allies was that he didn’t know whom to call when he had a crisis. That is likely to remain the case in the unlikely event that Kissinger comes calling again.
Before I go any farther, let me say that from all accounts Van Rompuy is an estimable, honorable man. But it is also true that even those who supported his candidacy would be hard put to counter the impression and descriptions of him as a “harmless, plodding, nonentity.” (He is also tagged as a “nice guy.”) Ironically, in many ways, Van Rompuy’s elevation represents a late triumph for Margaret Thatcher, who, were she still contributing her acerbic comments on EU politics, would likely applaud the choice. “Nonentities” would suit her fine in the top positions, and it is telling that Britain’s Conservatives vehemently opposed Tony Blair because they feared that a strong, “charismatic” figure would indeed increase the power of Brussels in world affairs.
As a faithful Thatcherite on most economic issues, I still think that, for all the problems it will generate, over the long haul it is in U.S. interest to have Europe as a strong(er) partner in foreign affairs—not least as our accommodating president faces the calculating realism of a rising China.
Thus, I would agree with the Economist magazine, which argued (to no avail): “ We believe that national governments have a unique claim to democratic legitimacy … We want Europe to have a more coherent voice in the world. Whatever else you think of him, Blair is a man with direct access to world leaders. For all his merits, Van Rompuy’s main experience in international disputes as prime minister is the Belgo-Dutch row over the dredging of the River Scheldt.”
Baroness Catherine Ashton, the new EU foreign affairs chief, is another kettle of fish. While she also may be “nice,” she has displayed a driving (“naked?,” “self-promoting?”) ambition in her relatively short tenure as EU trace commissioner. Even more than Van Rompuy, Ashton comes to her office with virtually no experience in her foreign policy portfolio (chair of the health authority in Hertfordshire; undersecretary of state in the education department), but in the House of Lords she proved skillful in shepherding the Lisbon Treaty through the legislative maze. Still, since she was unexpectedly handed the trade post, she has worked assiduously to master her brief—and, until recently, campaigned night and day for reappointment to the post in the new EU Commission. As the EU foreign affairs and security “high representative,” she will potentially preside over a very large budget and a diplomatic corps of some 7000 minions. With a vague mandate, and EU bureaucratic wolves lurking in the bushes, she will have to watch her step—and back. But no one will call her plodding.
Finally, Van Rompuy is noted for his fondness for Japanese poetry, and may indeed have written the most telling commentary on his own appointment in a haiku poem about a fly, as reported by The Times: “A fly zooms, buzzes: Spins and is lost in the room. He does no one harm.”