The first President of the EU may be a name you don’t recognize

With the imminent implementation of the Lisbon Treaty, the European Union’s de facto Constitution which creates two new top posts, that of President of the European Union and an EU Foreign Minister in all but name, candidates have been jockeying for position or having their names floated, but it now appears the new Mr. Europe (or Ms. Europe?) will be someone without international clout and who may have to identify themselves for a while because it likely won’t be a familiar face.That poses an immediate diplomatic problem for the Europe, which, decades after former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger famously asked, “Who speaks for Europe?” may find itself with someone relatively unknown on the world stage, especially after the biggest name in the field – former British Prime Minister Tony Blair – appears to have been elbowed out, even while the current UK Foreign Minister, David Miliband, has seen his star ascend to take the same spot representing the EU in foreign affairs. That’s a dicey matter itself in that the UK is barely in the EU, doesn’t use the Euro, and many of its own Members of the European Parliament want the country to secede, which could make it a tad difficult for Miliband to speak for the EU in thorny matters ranging from trying to find a Mideast peace – a job Blair already holds as the EU’s Special Envoy there – to how to handle Iran’s burgeoning nuclear program and world conflicts. Blair lost out apparently because he insisted on bringing the UK and the EU into a war with Iraq over imaginary weapons of mass destruction and his critics say he doesn’t like Europe anyway and his abrasive nature has rubbed too many people the wrong way.
 Diplomats said that EU leaders were expected to re-convene on November 12 or 19 to discuss names. The new EU Presidency is seen as a more effective way of governing than rotating six-month stints given to different countries. Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, head of the Socialist grouping in the European Parliament, said Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann and Spanish Prime Jose Luis Rodriquez Zapatero were asked to negotiate a deal with their conservative counterparts. The president is elected by qualified majority for a term of two and a half years, renewable once and the talk has been that a Conservative will get the president’s job and a Socialist the diplomatic spot. There are no political rock stars in the running, no one with the weight of US President Barack Obama or Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, with whom the EU President will have to wheel and deal. And, of course, the new leader will have the highest profile in the EU, overshadowing the European Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso, who will more and more be relegated to administrative and touchy-feely tasks and find himself out of the limelight, while French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who already considers himself the President of Europe as well as his own country, will have to stand on the sidelines and watch someone he thinks is smaller than him speak for Europe. Some of the candidates are about as exciting as watching paint dry, and it leaves you to wonder how they represent Europe in a position that requires some dynamism and leadership skills, and not just bureaucratic or political abilities. If they were any duller, you could sand your car with them. The new EU President will have to project himself (or herself) across the globe and not just Brussels, which is Barroso’s domain, and could find himself (or herself) playing second fiddle to the more demonstrative and openly ambitious young Miliband, who’s never seen a camera he didn’t like.  With Blair all but out, and perhaps the other strongest European presence, former Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, having already taken the job of NATO Secretary-General, the underwhelming names being talked about as there is a growing sense the Lisbon Treaty could be in force as soon as December 1, include:

l Former Latvian president Vaira Vike-Freiberga
l Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves
l Luxembourg Prime Minister and Eurozone head Jean-Claude Juncker
l Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende
l Belgian Prime Minister Herman van Rompuy
l Former Spanish prime minister Felipe Gonzalez
The toughest man in the bunch is a woman, Vike-Freiberga, who had the grit to stand up to Putin, who usually makes EU leaders take a urine test where they’re standing, but she’s out of office now, although apart from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, she’s perhaps the foremost female face in the Union. Merkel said the EU’s first president would need to be a skilled mediator. “Of course it needs to be a person with special abilities,” the chancellor said after a summit of EU leaders in Brussels, and you could almost see her pointing the invisible finger at herself but she just got re-elected. “To immediately understand the opinion of each member state in short conversations, to implement it fully and still not provoke a row - that is what we wish of the EU president.” In short: No Wave Makers Need Apply, because the EU doesn’t want its boat rocked.