Europe, World Politics
- November 5, 2009
Who will be President of the EU?
Author: Rosa Maria YoungAfter the Lisbon Treaty was finally ratified by the Czech Republic, the last of the 27 European countries to do it, the EU got in a celebrating mode. But now comes the hard part, the implementation of the treaty which is expected to become effective December 1. This treaty will give the European Union a bigger role internationally with the creation of a president post and a foreign policy chief. It will also put in place a new voting system and more power to the directly elected European Parliament. With less than a few weeks to choose the holders of these posts an emergency summit is planned within two weeks with the view to the jobs being operative January 1. Most of the attention will be focus on the selection of the President of the European Council and rumors abound about who will have the post. Some of the front-runners are politicians not too well know outside Europe, such as Herman Van Rompuy, the Belgian Prime Minister, and Jan Peter Balkenende, his Dutch counterpart. Well know politicians Tony Blair from the UK and Felipe Gonzalez from Spain seem to have less possibilities than they did a few weeks ago.
One Response to “Who will be President of the EU?”
Selecting a President of the European Council will in hindsight appear to be a fairly easy task. What is more problematic for Europeans is the notion of more centralized foreign policy and economic policy decision making. There will be controversy when the EU decides to negotiate the increase of troop deployment to Afghanistan for instance. My solution to this is to select a collective council that would consist of five individuals, one from the NW of Europe, one from the Central part of the continent, and so on. This would be done to reflect the specific economic interests of those regions.
By Andrew Young on Nov 8, 2009