Another fine mess

Jul 19th 2014

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Lessons from the European Union’s embarrassing failure to settle its top jobs

THE European Union is chronically bad at filling its most senior jobs. The choice of Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker, a federalist insider, as president of the European Commission was a poor response to the many ordinary folk who are dissatisfied with the EU. It was also an unwelcome power grab by the European Parliament, which arrogated to itself the right to nominate Mr Juncker and “elected” him this week.

Yet national leaders manage little better. This week they met to carve up the other top jobs, in a process dominated by political horse-trading and tokenism. The two main positions at issue were the president of the European Council, the leaders’ club, and the EU’s foreign-policy supremo. In the event, after a long squabble, the EU summit could agree on neither. It will now reconvene in late August (see article).

For Europe’s leaders to fail to agree on these other jobs, so soon after the Juncker debacle, betrays a shameful negligence. As May’s European elections showed, the EU is in deep trouble. Its economy is stuttering, its voters are increasingly hostile to the project, and Russia’s intervention in Ukraine has created a big foreign-policy crisis. This is not a good moment for vacillation. Moreover, there is a fine candidate for the European Council presidency in Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the Danish prime minister. She fits the bill as a woman from the centre-left, to set against Mr Juncker, a man from the centre-right. The sole objection to her is that Denmark is not in the euro. Yet, given anxieties about dividing the EU into “ins” and “outs”, and keeping Britain a member, that should be a plus, not a minus.

It was the nomination of Federica Mogherini, Italy’s foreign minister, as the EU’s foreign-policy chief that blocked any deal. On paper Ms Mogherini sounds good: young (just 41), bright, sober and hard-working, she is in many ways a welcome contrast to Mr Juncker. But she has two counts against her. One is a lack of experience, after just four months as Italian foreign minister. The other, more substantial problem is her cravenness towards Russia. Her first trip abroad during Italy’s six-month presidency of the EU was to Kiev and then Moscow, where she talked of compromise in Ukraine and implicitly accepted Russia’s interests there. Worse, she has positively welcomed the EU’s energy dependence on Russia, backing the controversial South Stream pipeline that would help the EU to import more Russian gas, bypassing Ukraine.

Use your time wisely

Despite this week’s impasse, Ms Mogherini remains the front-runner. But European leaders should use the time they now have to find a better candidate. She (or, if the leaders show a reckless disdain for gender balance, he) needs to score in both the areas where Ms Mogherini is weak.

The idea that experience is optional for the EU’s foreign minister is drearily reminiscent of the choice in 2009 of Britain’s Cathy Ashton, another diplomatic novice whose appointment was a sop to Gordon Brown. Lady Ashton exceeded expectations: after a shaky start, she was a decent chair of the foreign-affairs council and a reasonably successful negotiator with Iran and in the western Balkans. But the job of High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy is a huge one. It requires both administrative experience (to knock Eurocrats’ heads together) and political clout (to cut a figure abroad, where diplomacy is bolstered by gravitas, and to marshal the EU’s unruly national foreign ministers).

In dealing with Russia, these attributes are urgently needed. The EU has struggled to unite over its eastern neighbour, and Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, has skilfully exploited its divisions. Italy, like Germany, has been reluctant to impose tough sanctions on Mr Putin for his illegal annexation of Crimea and his interference in eastern Ukraine. Yet a revanchist Russia could be the EU’s biggest foreign-policy problem over the next few years. Instead of the emollient, untested Ms Mogherini, the EU should choose someone astringent and weighty. Ms Mogherini’s compatriot and predecessor, Emma Bonino, would be a good choice. Better still would be either the foreign minister of Poland, Radek Sikorski, or that of Sweden, Carl Bildt. The EU complains about not being taken seriously in the world. Here is a chance to change that.