Tony Blair as elected president of Europe? A dreadful thought
A cold shiver must have passed down many a spine this morning at the sight of Tony Blair all over the nation's media, arguing with quiet fervency that Europe needs an elected president. Because there can be no doubt which particular bronzed globetrotter he has in mind for the role.
Blair seems to forget that European monetary union was actually less popular with the British public when he left office than when he came in. If he could not convince the British people of the significance of the European project, it is a mystery how he thinks he can persuade the world. It is also worth noting the policy areas he thinks a European president should drive forward: tax, the single market, defence, immigration and crime. He would want to promote exactly the same neoliberal policies that he peddled as prime minister of Britain in his (hoped-for) new role as president of Europe. Anything more likely to provoke basically social democrat and/or Christian democrat countries to fight to get out of the European Union could not be imagined.
But the fundamental problem with Blair's proposal is that it is an attempt to promote further European integration with the top-down mechanism of an elected president. Nothing has inspired more suspicion of the European project among ordinary voters than these attempts to promote integration by subterfuge. For instance, economic and monetary union (EMU) never made sense as an economic project. I know this because in the 1990s I took part in a major inquiry into it as a member of the Treasury select committee. The committee had the opportunity to travel around Europe questioning foreign ministers about EMU on (and off) the record. None of them thought, even then, that the German economy and "Mediterranean" economies like Greece were going to converge any time soon. And everyone knew that, without genuine economic convergence, EMU was an accident waiting to happen. But EMU was seen as a means of quietly progressing political integration.
Blair is proposing an elected president for 350 million people. How could anyone possibly identify with such a figure? How could they be made meaningfully accountable? The fallout from EMU has actually tarnished the European project. In the same way an elected, but unaccountable, European president prancing around on the world stage – possibly lending their support to the invasion of some hapless Muslim country – would feel undemocratic to ordinary Europeans. This would not advance the cause of further European integration one jot.
Further European integration may well be inevitable. But there needs to be genuine debate. European political elites need to bring ordinary people with them. Above all it needs to be gradual. The "big bang" approach of someone like Blair, with all his political baggage, being elected president of the United States of Europe would be disastrous.
No doubt Blair is dreaming of, once again, being at a rostrum side by side with the US president. These were the sort of press conferences, with the eyes of the world on him, which he used to do with his friend George Bush. No doubt he misses basking in the attention and the sense of being a world power-broker. But, for the sake of the sustainability of the European Union, Blair must forgo his dreams.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/09/tony-blair-president-europe
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