Tony Blair: The first president of the EU?

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is “in the pole position” in the race to become the European Union’s first president, said Ayfer Erkul in the Netherlands’ De Morgen. EU heads of state will pick someone to fill the new post of president as soon as all member countries have ratified the new EU constitution—and that should be any day now, since the last holdout, Czech President Vaclav Klaus, indicated this week that he would soon capitulate. The powers of the new position are only vaguely defined, though, and mostly involve speaking for Europe on the world stage. That’s much of the reason why Blair is the favorite: Having served as Britain’s head of state for 10 years, he is already known across the world, “and thus can give immediate credibility to the job of EU president.” Most people have never heard of the other candidates, who include Dutch Premier Jan Peter Balkenende and former Irish President Mary Robinson.

Blair looked like “a shoo-in”—until a few months ago, said Con Coughlin in Britain’s Daily Telegraph. Recently, two blocs opposing him have emerged. The European federalists—led by the Benelux countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg—consider Blair unqualified to lead Europe because he failed to get his own country to adopt the common euro currency and to relax its border controls. The Benelux countries issued a joint statement demanding that the first EU president be someone who has “demonstrated his commitment to Europe”—language intended as a slap at Blair. Then there are Europe’s leftists. Blair is “something of a hate figure” for them because of his strong support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Still, Blair remains the main contender, if only because of the backing of powerhouses Germany and France. Both those countries agree that the first president will have to project star power, and that’s the one thing Blair has in spades.

Don’t be so sure about us, said France’s L’Indépendent in an editorial. The French government has always been assumed to support Blair, who, after all, speaks French. But last week, a government spokesman “refused to confirm” that position. France has been listening to the Benelux arguments and pondering whether a Belgian might be a better choice. Germany isn’t a safe vote, either. It’s no secret that Chancellor Angela Merkel “is not a fan” of Blair. And now Austria and Poland have joined the anti-Blair camp, saying that his stance on Iraq made him “a divider, not a uniter.”

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That’s ridiculous, said Jochen Bittner in Germany’s Die Zeit. Nobody has complained about the election of Spaniard José Manuel Barroso as the current top EU executive, yet Barroso, too, supported the Iraq war. The real reason some Europeans have turned on Blair is that they are panicked at the thought of having a strong leader. They feel more comfortable having Europe represented by a typically fusty “Eurocrat” who won’t threaten the Brussels bureaucracy. Blair has been criticized for having too much personal ambition, but “it is precisely such ambition that Europe needs to persuade it to look up from a quarter-century of navel-gazing and seek new horizons.” Otherwise, we will remain a “petty little continent.”