Two new spots

History has been written: Europe has its president in the name and form of Herman van Rompuy. Another prominent position, or at least we think it will be, has been handed out to Cathy Ashton. She has been put forward by Gordon Brown as a candidate for the post of high representative, or as the position is better known: Europe’s foreign minister (first EU foreign policy chief).

Europe’s multi-institutional build-up, chaired by different figures, will demand some more patience for us to see how and if powers will shift. Some careful and intermediate conclusions can be drawn out though, with a slight risk that I will have to eat some of my words.

As a bold start: Europe is unlikely to head or aim for world politics. This has nothing to do with capabilities, only with the fact that van Rompuy works a lot more behind the scenes than charismatic persons such as Blair do. Van Rompuy has only been prime minster of Belgium for about a year and has not as much experience as several other candidates have, although he seems up to the job. For one thing, he led Belgium out of chaos, which fought rough political battles in stormy waters the last years. You would almost think that anyone capable of leading Belgium will have no trouble at all with leading Europe. His genes too seem to favor him too, for his family has a habit of being involved in politics (this is a figure of speech biologists, do not worry I am not trying to abuse your carefully crafted knowledge).  But what does his denomination say about Europe’s prospects?

Since the president chairs meetings of the European Council I don’t think it is likely he will be seen on global issues in any way comparable to Obama or Clinton. This would have been possible with Blair, but Rompuy is better at overcoming difficulties and stimulating compromises than he is at taking stage and inspiring people thereby. This isn’t necessarily bad, especially not with his intellectual background and image. He is well respected, and with his language know-how the job to get EU-country leaders closer together will be much easier, even if he won’t be a strategic pawn in global politics.  We should even be glad, since he is much more capable than most of his competitors by being much more inclined to think in pragmatic, philosophical (read: critical) terms. This goes especially in comparison to Dutch candidate Balkenende (it should be noted that he denied availability) and Luxembourg’s Juncker. The latter’s ties with the UK will hardly bring the isles  any closer, and he is in any case better suited for financially orientated tasks.

The second new job went to Cathy Ashton, who has worked as a European trade commissioner for a year. I am more puzzled why she got the job. Her background reveals little experience that makes her suitable for an assignment people held to rival the president’s in power. She never served as minister in England, and neither has she participated in any public elections. David Millband was rumored to get the job at first, but he supposedly stayed behind in order to rescue his Labor party from a huge defeat in next year’s elections (good luck there).

Luckily we have a few other reasons before bowing our heads in despair because Europe randomly chose someone: Ashton is a woman. That seems uninformative, but please don’t say that aloud to feminists. The longer people discussed potential people to fill in these newly created spots, the louder the voice became that called for a woman to take on the job. Nothing wrong with that of course, on the contrary, even though I am strongly opposed against ‘women-quotas’ in businesses and other such measures. But many wanted to see a woman holding an important post in Europe. Well, it seems they got their way. The fact that she has worked under Barrosso, the current president of the European Commission, will probably have done her some favors as well, since he is at least rumored to have given her his support.

It’s a funny thing that people kept their focus on an English candidate. There are several ‘good’ reasons for this. The first is the U.K’s relationship with the European Union. They’re not in the middle of the heat; they want to keep as much power on their islands as they can. The one thing that they intensely keep track of however is foreign policy. When it comes to Afghanistan and Iraq, the Balkans and Israel: England leads.  So it was natural perhaps, than an Englishmen, or woman in this case, got the job. Strategic too, because Europe got bigger, and with the NATO and the UN it has since long kept an eye on security and armies.  But more than enough ambitions and rumors are around to tell us that a more centralized European army will one day be realized, or at least strived for. And both the French and the Germans will know their chances are slim to none to materialize this without UK support.

Time, as always, will tell what is in store for us. With less prominent figures leading Europe’s way, we can draw several intermediate conclusions. The first is that a power struggle between the foreign minister, the council president and the commission president is less likely than before, because of egos with less need of inflating. With van Rompuy as our newly elected president, we have someone who has a reasonably clean-sheet, which in political terms means few opponents. In combination with Ashton, who is less widely known but nevertheless liked, we can have good hopes for a future of cooperation rather than proliferation of individuals. A good relationship with foreign representatives might do us some good too, and Ashton’s former job as trade commissioner might be a nice stepping-stone.