[mr dragon]

I had to laugh yesterday. I watched Adam Boulton's commentary on Sky News re the selection of the new posts of EU 'President' and the 'High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy'. He said the EU had just given birth to two mice! Boulton's humour aside, I actually thought it was a pretty good result. Both positions are unelected, and I think it's fair to say that when you create these new positions the people who do them first define what those positions will be going forward. Selecting some unknown Belgium PM and a fairly unknown UK EU Labour trade minister for both the positions feels ok because both of them are not political heavy weights therefore not wanting to consolidate their own existing power. I say this because many of us do not want a Federalist EU, therefore don't want a political big hitter in the role of EU 'President'. If it's just someone to chair meetings that's fine by me. Hence why Tony Blair would have been a very bad idea- as certain people wanted him initially. But it's also score one for Britain as a compromise. Britain's Baroness Ashton will probably have a bigger role in reality as the 'Foreign Affairs and Security Minister' than the so called 'President' Belgium's Herman Van Rompuy (I can sooo see the British tabloids having a lot of fun with his name!). P and I were chatting about this the other day and we both thought the Netherlands Jan Peter Balkenende would have been the better choice for 'President', but there you go- we got Van Rompuy. I'd never heard of Herman Van Rompuy until last week (just goes to show how closely we all pay attention to Belgium and their Prime Ministers ) but if he's a centre right coalition builder (that he apparently has been since the problems in that country) then I'm ok with it for now. If the guy's just there to chair EU meetings and nothing else, as the so called 'EU President', that's fine by me.

Gavin Hewitt made some interesting points about this today:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/gavinhewitt/

[mr dragon]

I heard this outburst in the EU Parliament from UKIP's Nigel Farage yesterday, about Herman Van Rompuy. Farage'll do anything to get some headlines back here in the UK, but it was quite funny, insulting though. I'm not a big EU integrationist and I'm anti-federalist, but I do get slightly embarrassed sometimes with Britain's very negative view of the EU when it gets to parties like UKIP.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8537664.stm

[SilverMiniCooperS]

Is what he said true??

[mr dragon]

Lol! I dunno Jenn. To be honest I thought the whole creation of an EU 'President' and a 'Foreign Secretary' seemed slightly pointless as they have no teeth- they aren't given any 'real' power given the actual 'names' of those positions. I also don't want them to have any real power in that context, because I'm anti-federalist, and they are unelected by EU citizens. Having said that the EU does have major problems in terms of representation as a single body. It's like as Kissinger famously once said- 'who do I call if I want to talk to Europe'? I really don't know the answer to that, but it seems that's what they've tried to do. But, having said that, we still have the rotating 'presidency' within the EU at the same time- and that seemed to work OK in the past. To be honest I don't think they really know what they 'are' yet as an 'organisation', as they move forward currently.

I was actually just happy with the EU just being a large single trading bloc- with unrestricted free trade between the member states, and the opening up of borders for cross flow of people economically between states. That part is excellent and works well. The rest....I dunno.

Dragon *shrugs*.

I guess we'll have to see.