Europe chooses a quiet president
The Globe and Mail has failed to inform Canadians that the new EU President and EU Foreign Minister are both members of the Bilderberg Group, and all that implies. There is some good background information contained in the following article, however.Such as the fact that the new EU foreign minister has been working on the EU-Canada free trade portfolio for months now. Heopfully you’ve heard of it. If not, you can find StatismWatch’s coverage of the trade bill that promises – or threatens – to be ‘bigger than NAFTA’ here.
Flashback: Italian MP Denounces Bilderberg Influence During European Parliament Meeting | Czech president sees EU constitution as creating ’super-state’ but too far gone to block | Billionaire EU campaigner ‘paid’ Tony Blair | Embryonic EU security office set up in secret talks under Lisbon Treaty | Ireland votes yes to Lisbon EU constitution | Blair to be named EU President ‘within weeks’ if Irish ratify Lisbon Treaty | New Czech move to block ratification of EU constitution | Icelandic parliament rolls over, votes for EU membership | Ireland to hold second referendum on Lisbon Treaty | EU leaders reassure Irish in latest attempt to revive Lisbon treaty | Secret report details Nazi plan to create a European Union | Leaked 1955 Bilderberg Docs Outline Plan For Single European Currency | Bilderberg chairman: ‘Bilderberg helped create the Euro’ | Iceland to be fast-tracked into the EU | European Leaders Call For New Global Order | Irish to vote on EU treaty again as experts warn Britain could be signed up within a year | You’re not doing it right: New Irish vote on EU integration ‘legal’ | Harper, Sarkozy vow to work toward Canada-EU deal | Sarkozy urges climate change action on first day as EU president | Irish ‘need new EU treaty vote’ | Lisbon treaty: Pressure on Ireland for second vote | EU tries to isolate Irish after treaty rejection | EU grapples with Irish ‘No’ vote, members consider ratification options | Defiant Ireland set to quash Europe-wide constitutional moves | Ireland Set To Vote On EU Dictatorship | Ireland Only Country to Hold Referendum on Contentious EU Constitution | EU Looking for Presidential Candidates | European Parliament Members Revolt Over Treaty of Lisbon
Doug Saunders, Globe and Mail
November 19, 2009
Belgian Herman Van Rompuy selected in a closed-door meeting to be the first permanent president of the world’s largest economy and the chief representative of 500 million people
Europeans had barely finished their dinners Thursday night when they were introduced to their George Washington, the man who had been selected by the leaders of their countries in a closed-door meeting to be the first permanent president of the world’s largest economy and the chief representative of 500 million people.
It was the shock of the strange. Few in Europe have heard of Herman Van Rompuy, the Belgian head of government, and many were doubtless startled by what they saw: a bespectacled man whose dishevelled hair producing a mad-scientist aura, avoiding eye contact with the camera as he spoke shyly in three languages and made a most unpresidential pledge: “I will remain discreet.”
For a continent that has wrestled for years with the question of its leadership, it was a moment of bathos. After years of disputes and referendums, months of high-level deliberation and a short dinner meeting of national leaders Thursday night, the unobtrusive Belgian Prime Minster was selected as the ultimate compromise candidate.
Mr. Van Rompuy, as President of the EU’s top body, the European Council, and the man who will represent the continent at summits, was joined by the continent’s first foreign minister, Catherine Ashton, a woman who may be better known in Canada than she is in her native Britain, as she has spent this year as European trade commissioner, negotiating the Canada-EU free-trade deal. She has a year’s experience in foreign affairs.
And with that, Europe effectively gave up its ambition, so palpable a year ago, to become one of the world’s major powers. [Ed. Note: Don't believe it. Real power is quiet.]
In closed-door meetings during the past several weeks, the leaders of France and Germany, according to diplomats, decided to avoid the sort of figure who might speak as an equal with Barack Obama and Hu Jintao in international forums.
In part, this was because the only real candidate for a strong-president role was Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, who had the appropriate traffic-stopping clout and international recognition. But he proved divisive: As a figure from the left-wing Labour Party, he did not please Europe’s new conservative majority, who wanted someone from their dominant European People’s Party to fill the post.
But the decision also signals a larger retreat for Europe, away from its recent global ambitions.
This year began strongly, with European leaders joining forces to propose the rebuilding of the collapsed world economy and banking system, promoting next month’s Copenhagen summit as the key to global climate-change unity, proposing the Europe-dominated G20 as the world’s financial problem solver, and making serious proposals to have the euro replace the dollar as the world’s major reserve currency.
This has been a long autumn of disappointment on most of those fronts.
Europe and the United States have gone in separate directions on many financial and regulatory matters. The Copenhagen consensus has dissolved before the beginning of the summit. The euro, while strong, is no closer to becoming a reserve currency. And the big issues of the world – the economy, Iran’s nuclear plans, the Middle East, North Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq – continue to be dominated by Washington.
Europe is increasingly divided into left and right, rich and poor, east and west. Some countries are recovering fast from the downturn, while others, such as Hungary, Estonia and Ireland, are in terrible shape. On paper, Mr. Van Rompuy is the right man for the moment: He is the Belgian leader who almost single-handedly ended a divide between his country’s French-speaking and Dutch-speaking communities. He is a backroom consensus builder.
But the job, vaguely described in the new constitution, is essentially defined by the person holding it. At minimum, the president is nothing more than a conduit for the views of 27 elected leaders; a stronger personality could make more of it. Europe, then, has chosen this moment to turn inward.
“Some of the prime ministers are more inclined to take a minimalist solution to the presidency,” the Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt warned Thursday night, “and that would reduce our ability to have a clear voice in the world – it would be, from our standpoint, a historic missed opportunity.”
It was, in the end, exactly such a triumph of minimalism over ambition.
History, in essence, had its revenge last night. The European Union was created in the postwar decades out of a mutual desire to prevent the horrors of the 20th century from recurring – to unite against the threat of self-serving nations, demagogic strongman leaders, cults of personality.
And it has succeeded all too well. As dangers loomed from outside, Europe last night decided to retreat into the reassuring safety of the grey bureaucrat.
Source | See also under Integration: Is G20 more than Toronto can handle? | With only seven months to go, G20 site may be moved to Toronto | Top Mountie says Huntsville too small for G20 | George Soros Calls for World Currency and “New World Architecture” | Canada commits to continental wilderness deal | Passing on the Mantle of Deep North American Integration | UK: Secret Plan for Euro Income Tax | The Columbia Coverup | The time has come for North American monetary union | Thatcher science adviser: Copenhagen goal is world government | Czech president sees EU constitution as creating ’super-state’ but too far gone to block | Billionaire EU campaigner ‘paid’ Tony Blair | Interpol and U.N. Back ‘Global Policing Doctrine’ | UN Urges International Action on Cyber Security Threat | Embryonic EU security office set up in secret talks under Lisbon Treaty | Ireland votes yes to Lisbon EU constitution | Irish go to polls to decide fate of Lisbon treaty | Blair to be named EU President ‘within weeks’ if Irish ratify Lisbon Treaty | Advance polls open in Irish vote on Lisbon EU constitution | New Czech move to block ratification of EU constitution | Bilderberg Wants Global Currency Now | Obama tells UN new era demands global unity | Gordon Brown urges EU to back new economic order | Williams says international fish deal erodes Canadian sovereignty | A year after financial crisis, a new world order emerges | Barack Obama to cement new US-UN relationship, chair UN Security Council | Ottawa plans U.S. dollar bond | Government of Canada Participates in Major US Homeland Security Exercise | BC, like Ontario, moves to harmonize taxes | Think Tank Report: Obama Will “Press The Reset Button” On North American Union Agenda | Harper to meet Obama, Calderon in August | Icelandic parliament rolls over, votes for EU membership | Obama should rename the SPP, set up two speeds on integration with Canada and Mexico, says new report | Medvedev Unveils “World Currency” Coin At G8 | Canada to match U.S. climate change rules | Happy North America Day? | China calls anew for super-sovereign currency | Ireland to hold second referendum on Lisbon Treaty | Central Bank of Canada ‘considering’ regulatory changes, ‘continuous private liquidity creation’ | EU leaders reassure Irish in latest attempt to revive Lisbon treaty | UK plans to integrate ‘cybersecurity’ centre with US, Canada | PM calls on Parliament to pass Colombia free-trade pact | RCMP and US Coast Guard to integrate as Canada signs border pact with Homeland Security | New US border technology directed at insidious threat: Canadians | Obama signs U.S. credit card reforms into law | Credit card changes benefit families, Flaherty says | Clinton defends new border restrictions | Leaked 1955 Bilderberg Docs Outline Plan For Single European Currency | EU approves free-trade talks with Canada | After Three Amigos rendezvous, White House confirms there’s no plan to reopen NAFTA | Obama Nominates Globalization Advocates to Clinton’s State Department | Harper Pledges to Double Funding to International Bank at Americas Summit | NRTEE Carbon Market Panel is ‘Round Table on Socialist Planning’ | Harper promotes NAFTA superhighway corridor hub in Manitoba | World Bank President Admits Agenda For Global Government | UN chief, Obama to discuss closer integration | Canada expects EU free-trade talks soon: Stockwell Day | Gordon Brown’s amazing patent cure-all globalization deal | Ignatieff on Obama visit: Crisis an opportunity for continental, global integration | Paul Martin prescribes international regulatory body for ailing fiat economies | Iceland to be fast-tracked into the EU | How realistic is a North American currency? | Gordon Brown hails UK job cuts as birth pangs of new world order | Canadian, U.S. energy policies to be inextricably linked: Prentice | Harper plays down threat to Arctic sovereignty | Obama to visit Canada, Tories to propose ‘integrated carbon market’ | European Leaders Call For New Global Order | Kissinger Calls for a New World Order | Detroit granted water extraction exemption due to ‘historical precedent’ | Bush Signs New Unified Command Plan for ‘Synchronized Global Planning’ | Latest Round of Closed-Door ACTA Copyright Negotiations Wrap Up | Kissinger Calls For New International System Out Of World Crises | Get close to Obama on economy and security, paper says | Financial Times: And now for a world government | Irish to vote on EU treaty again as experts warn Britain could be signed up within a year | EU Police to Stream into Kosovo Despite Protests | UN Climate Change Conference open with call for ‘co-operation’ | Press for Truth confronts Paul Martin on Bilderberg and the SPP | Canada backpedals on sharing ID database with U.S. | UK closer to joining euro, EU commission president says | Congressman Warns Of Secret Plans To Create International Central Bank | You’re not doing it right: New Irish vote on EU integration ‘legal’ | IMF: G20 meeting underscores need for greater surveillance, changes in global governance | A New World Financial Order: It Better Work This Time | This weekend’s G-20 meeting: Shaping a new world order | Flaherty calls for mandatory IMF surveillance | Document Outlining IMF Economic Dictatorship Uncovered/Leaked? | Gordon Brown calls for new world order to beat recession | Harper ready to harmonize with U.S. on climate change | Harper Govt. to push North American carbon market plan with Obama | Hope for Obama’s US and Europe to drive a ‘new deal’ for a ‘new world’: Barroso, Brown | Sitting US Congressman: Expect shift towards world government under Obama | Russian government calls for new World Order | TILMA interprovincial “trade pact” represents further centralization of political power | IMF may need to “print money”, act as “world’s central bank” as crisis spreads | ‘Stick together or sink together’: European Commission president invokes ‘global governance’ | Globalists Exploit Financial Meltdown In Move Towards One World Currency | Wanted: a new financial order | Harper, Sarkozy vow to work toward Canada-EU deal | Europe presses for world financial reform, more power for IMF | IMF prescribes state regulation of ‘global financial order’ | Behind the panic: Financial warfare over the future of global bank power | New World Order: Global co-operation, nationalisation and state intervention – all in one day | CD Howe Institute backs Canada-EU deal, deep integration | Towards a new world order: Canada-EU trade proposal rivals scope of NAFTA | Architect of North American integration urges reboot | Canada’s made in America energy policy | Canadian ambassador to address fourth annual North American Forum in Washington | “North American Parliament” Meets At Integration Forum | New bridge slated for Windsor-Detroit corridor: sources | Student Mock Parliament to be held in Montreal Parallels Integrationist Aims of SPP | South American union is created | Business group sets and gets its agenda | Continental Business Lobby Releases List of Priorities for Government to Address at SPP Talks| North American ID card in the works through SPP | CBC-TV’s mini-series Trojan Horse is a very clever warning to Canadians about the North American Union agenda | New Documents Reveal North American Union PR Campaign | Canada, U.S. agree to use each other’s troops in civil emergencies | Consider a continental currency: Jarislowsky | Vicente Fox Admits Plan For Single NAFTA Currency | Military To Crackdown On North American Union Protesters | North American Union plan headed to Congress in fall | Fraser Institute: The Case for the Amero