So who is Günther Oettinger? He is Ministerpräsident (CDU) of Baden-Württemberg and a somewhat diffult ally of Angela Merkel (he often criticized her as he wanted to “sharpen his profile in Berlin”, there are also rumours of him being part of the Anti-Merkel Andenpakt).

Officially he was chosen because of his expertise in economic affairs which is a clear signal of Merkel that he should get a prominent single market related portfolio in the next Commission. One could also come to the conclusion that Merkel wanted to get rid of him… Although I do not think he would have been a serious problem for Merkel… he has become quite unpopular in BW and is perceived as a pretty weak  Ministerpräsident! – so it is rather a good exit strategy for him!

I think Chancellor Merkel could have picked a better candidate! Oettinger is a local politician – he  has never had a position on the national level. His career is focused on Baden-Württemberg only – admittedly one of the best performers among the German Länder. However, the economic crisis has had a huge impact and Oettinger was heavily criticized about his abilities to manage the crisis.  And he totally lacks any European or international experience and I don’t know anything about his language skills. Actually he is much more a bureaucrat than a politician which again might be helpful in the Commission.

If you are interested in Günther Oettingers EU credentials you might want to check the Baden Württemberg – EU website here. Unfortunately he is not the best public speaker, so he won’t be a Commissioner that will engage actively with the public and make the case for EU policy. However, chancellor Merkel will make sure that  the EU commission will not act against the German government and she also underlines her role in EU politics – and ultimately that of the European Council and her direct connection to Barosso – without the interference of a German commissioner.

Günther Oettinger stands for the status quo – ‘no experiments’ plus solid bureaucratic work. Unfortunately that might also be an indicator for the EU attitude of the new German government. So I doubt whether we will see important German EU initiatives in the next years.

A notable scandal included Günther Oettinger defending Hans Filbinger Nazi past. The “eulogy controversy” sparked quite a debate within Germany. Some in Brussels might remember this photo which was taken during a party (in Brussels) in which Oettinger obviously had a good time:

Afterwards he said he was behaving normally and he does not intend to change. He actually had a couple of scandals involving a lot of beer and right wing songs… so watch out Brussels!

I actually come from the same region (even same city!) as Oettinger  so I have followed his career in the last years…so I might write some more about him in the future. Generally, I think people in the region will be quite happy to get rid of him. He is known to be a fast talker which often makes it very hard to understand him (even if you are a German native speaker – and even if you speak a dialect called Swabian!) One example:

However, despite all the talk about the European Council President, this is actually the more important position for one single reason:  The High Rep will be able to use the EU foreign policy machinery including (post EEAS) – Commission staff (RELEX), Council Secretariat staff (including ESDP and CFSP tools plus all the  ‘Special Representatives’) and the newly created European External Action Service.

Moreover the new High Rep will be a Vice-President of the European Commission and chair the Foreign Affairs Councils. Therefore I agree with Simon Hix who said “The president could end up being all prestige and no power, while the high representative is real power and little prestige.” The European Council President only chairs a couple of summits and has no job description – it is not even clear whether he will get office staff… Well, one sentence in the Lisbon treaty could  become problematic:

It is the Council President (President of the European Council) who will “ensure the external representation of the Union on issues concerning its common foreign and security policy”. He shall do that, however: “without prejudice to the powers of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy”.

So, team play will be necessary at least to a certain extent. However, it is very unfortunate that the question of who becomes High Rep depends on who will be chosen as European Council President – and not the other way round!

So let’s have a quick round of possible candidates:

Today, speculations included David Miliband (UK Foreign Secretary -ruled himself out on twitter!), frequently mentioned is also Olli Rehn (EU enlargement commissioner) as well as Ursula Plassnik (former Foreign Minister of Austria) and Dora Bakoyannis (former Foreign Minister of Greece). Several other names have been mentioned in the last couple of months: former External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten, former Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel and former NATO Secretary-General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

Anyone in there who could be the next High Rep? I think David Miliband could be a good candidate but he might not be experienced enough – and, given his ambition to become the next leader of the Labour party, I doubt whether he is a serious candidate. Let’s ask him in 5 years again!  What about the rest? They all seem rather boring with a lack vision for EU foreign policy. Unfortunately I do not know much about Ursula Plassnik  and Dora Bakoyannis. Chris Patten and Jaap de Hoop Scheffer are certainly well respected in Brussels.  Especially Jaap de Hoop Scheffer could be a serious candidate given his NATO experience – he would be a solid and diplomatic High Rep without being too demanding towards member states.  Olli Rehn lacks experience and being EU enlargement Commissioner may not be enough to get the job. However, a High Rep without political ambition (de Hoop Scheffer) or lack of experience (Rehn) could exactly be the sort of person the European Council is looking for…

But is that everything we can come up with?  The High Rep should be THE foreign policy authority of the EU, with the ability to negotiate deals in the Foreign Affairs Council  – so the person needs to be high profile and should have considerable foreign policy experience.  European Foreign Policy is one policy in which citizens want to see a stronger EU. The new High Rep needs to be able to communicate this clearly and passionately. Moreover, the person is expected to negotiate worldwide – so there we need someone recognizable with a proven track record in international negotiation. (If Tony Blair was serious about a EU job – he should go for that one and not the one with prestige and the misleading title).  So who else could be doing this kind of job:

Joschka Fischer – a former German foreign minister. He would certainly tick all the boxes. He has huge foreign policy experience, is known internationally and with good connections in the Middle East and in the US (after being a Visiting Fellow at Princeton and working in Madeleine Albright’s consultancy). Recently, he started working in support of the Nabucco pipeline. He has been a very charismatic and popular politician – and can still fill conference centres in London, Brussels or Washington! He would certainly be able to give the EU a real voice in foreign affairs. That unfortunately rules him out -  exactly that is not wanted by our dear politicians.

Martti Ahtisaari – a former president of Finland.  Wouldn’t it be great if Obama and Athisaari met and the press could have a headline like “Two Nobel peace prize winners demand…” – certainly Ahtisaari is very knowledgeable and respected internationally. He has an excellent reputation as a conflict mediator (he got the Nobel peace price for that!) and  has been an active advocate of a more powerful EU foreign policy. Again not the best thing to do in the present political climate. He might lack a bit of charisma (compared to Fischer…) which could be seen as an asset by the European Council…

Carl Bildt – the current Swedish foreign minister. Another strong candidate judging on his vast foreign policy experience. He is the only serving foreign minister of all the candidates which is an advantage because connections are important!  However, some (France, Germany) often claim he is too outspoken on Russia. He is a well known blogger and often grabs media attention with some bold statements. Moreover, being in the spotlight of EU politics due to the Swedish Council Presidency might be helpful (although the bold statement could ruin it…).

So, who has realistic chances? At the moment the race seems very open (or the secret is being kept well…) – Jaap de Hoop Sheffer, Chris Patten and  Olli Rehn could be realistic candidates, the joker could be Carl Bildt. Chances are that we get someone that has not been subject of any rumours lately. (The French are suspiciously silent…) And obviously it always depends a lot on who will become European Council President in terms of political and geographical balance…

But one thing is certain: unfortunately the best candidates will have absolutely no chance of getting the job!

The Top 10 Craziest Things Ever Said During a U.N. Speech

David Mitchell:

If academic endeavour had always been vetted in advance for practicality, we wouldn’t have the aeroplane or the iPhone, just a better mammoth trap.

Richard Laming

It is ironic that the people who complain most about the complexity of the treaty are the very same people who would complain if it was simple,…

Vaclav Klaus

The train carrying the treaty is going so fast and it’s so far that it can’t be stopped or returned, no matter how much some of us would want that.

Silvio Berlusconi

“I’m doing what I do with a sense of sacrifice. I don’t really like it. Not at all,” (…) “Very often there is a lot of dirty dealing; there is really the gutter press, worse than that, the shameless and sickly. It’s a difficult life to be responsible for leading the government in a country like Italy.”

“I never made any gaffes, not even one, every gaffe is invented by the newspapers.”

American official (asked about Cameron’s ECR group in the EP)

I do not see any upsides in the new grouping. I can only see downsides. In life it is normally best to do things when they have an upside.

The video is about Frontex and how the EU in general deals with the problem of so called “illegal immigrants”, often refugees from Africa,  that try to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea. There are claims that many refugees die as a result of Frontex activity. Border guards regularly catch people in small boats trying to reach Europe. There seems to be evidence that border guards force these people to return to their countries in those small boats and without enough food, water, equipment.  This practice  is not  allowed under the European Convention on Human Rights which obviously contradicts all the talk of Europe being at the forefront of defending human rights…

Moreover, the video also mentions  that Frontex and EDA are likely to use  more sophisticated military equipment in the fight against immigrants in the future. This poses the question whether the EU actually  ‘militarises’ its  external borders and whether that is a desirable outcome…

I already blogged about it last year but only now I found a way to watch it! derStandard.at finally made the complete series publicly available – for free and online! The English versions of the videos can be found in the right sidebar (you might need to scroll down a little)!

For the first time since 2002, the press freedom index’s top 20 is not quite so European. Only 15 of the 20 leading countries are from the Old Continent, compared with 18 in 2008. Eleven of these 15 countries are European Union members. They include the top three, Denmark, Finland and Ireland. Another EU member, Bulgaria, has been falling steadily since it joined in 2007 and is now 68th (against 59th in 2008). This is the lowest ranking of any member of the union.

The biggest one-year fall of any EU member was Slovakia’s. It sank 37 places to be 44th. This was mainly the result of government meddling in media activities and the adoption in 2008 of a law imposing an automatic right of response in the press. Two candidates for EU membership also experienced suffered dramatic falls. They were Croatia (78th), which fell 33 places, and Turkey (122nd), which fell 20 places.

The impact of organised crime and the targeting of journalists account for the falls suffered by both Bulgaria and Italy (49th), which got the worst ranking of the EU’s six original founders. Il Cavaliere’s harassment of the media, increased meddling, mafia violence against journalists who expose its activity and a bill that that would drastically curb the media’s ability to publish official phone tap transcripts explain why Italy fell for the second year running.

France (43rd) did not fare much better, falling eight points because of judicial investigations and arrests of journalists and raids on news media, and also because of meddling in the media by politicians, including President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The categories:

First, the president should be, well, boring — like Brussels itself. Politicians have knocked down candidates for being too controversial or too outspoken. Second, he should likely hold center-right or Christian Democratic political tendencies, given that Europe itself is headed that direction. Third, he should come from a country that uses the euro — showing full fealty to the concept of the union. Fourth, he should come from a small European country — anything other than Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, which normally dominate the union’s affairs. Finally, two wild-card characteristics: He should ideally speak French and have opposed the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq — if not at the time, then soon afterward.

Read the article (with more less detailed profiles of each candidate) here. Obviously the list is debatable: For example, it seems strange to include Angela Merkel (not boring?) and Anders Fogh Rasmussen but not Mary Robinson… also candidates from the Iberian peninsula might might not be considered since Commission President Barroso is from Portugal, to a lesser extent that might also be true for Polish candidates (Buzek = President of the European Parliament). I was also wondering about the language skills of the contenders… (Most of them fluent in French? – And what about English ?). One important category is missing: The “I made the case for the EU while being in office” – category.
Oh, and  sadly even the analysts (in this case: “assistant editor with a degree from Harvard”) of Foreign Policy fall into the trap of talking about a “EU President”…

1. There is a difference between the European Council, the Council of the EU and the Council of Europe – just look it up! Try to get your facts straight about the rotating presidency and EU terminology in general.

2. The Polish and  Czech parliaments approved the Lisbon treaty already! Only 2 signatures are missing.  So, please don’t write that both countries  still need to vote on the treaty…

3. And while we are at it: Do your research on the competences of the Czech president (hint: Czech constitution, some basics on parliamentary vs. presidential systems)

4. There is no actual link between the Irish Yes and a European Council President Blair – The treaty merely creates the position of a European Council President and not, I repeat: NOT: EU president, President of Europe etc.) Actually, the position is more like a permanent chairman… Tony Blair seems to be one of the people that are interested in getting the job. So try to get hold of other nominees as well! If you write a opinion piece you might want to check the issue of open nominations and the stopblair petition (more arguments against Blair here).

5. Anyway, forget about the “European Council president” for a moment.  It is much more important who will be nominated for the new Commission. And who will be the next High Representative for Foreign Affairs. All of these jobs are actually more powerful than the European Council president.

Thank you!

I am pretty sure that the  pressure on Klaus will be enormous. There are already rumors that Angela Merkel is preparing a “diplomatic sweetener” for him, whatever that means… Taking into account that the Czech Parliament ratified the treaty and the Czech president does not have any powers to veto the treaty,  it is his constitutional obligation to sign it eventually (apparently the problem is that the Czech constitution does not specify how long the President is allowed to postpone his  signature). Obviously he will use the argument that he needs to wait until the constitutional court has issued the ruling on a complaint of some senators. But in the end I am pretty sure that he will sign and that he will not have the guts to wait until the Conservatives form a government in the UK (which might happen next summer)…

However, the wider context is noteworthy: After a almost a decade of debate (Laeken 2001, Convention, Constitutional treaty, …) it seems that we end up with this mini reform treaty. I think most of the other major EU treaties contained more far-reaching reforms than this one. Basically only a couple of things are really innovative:  new double majority voting in more policy areas, a strengthened role for the European Parliament, some clarifications regarding competences, and some improvements in the field of EU foreign policy.

One thing is quite clear, there won’t be another big EU treaty for the foreseeable future  given the difficulty to get such a text ratified by 27 member states. A positive side effect might be that we can finally concentrate on policy issues and leave this institutional debate behind us – at least for a couple of years.  However, the Lisbon Treaty is far from being perfect and it is quite possible that it will create a number of institutional problems. The future will bring new challenges and new reforms might be necessary. And let’s face it: every reform needs to be reformed. So how is it possible to address these challenges and ensure further EU reform, even with 30+ member states (and with people like David Cameron)?

One possibility is to move towards thematic treaties. For example a “issue treaty” on climate change, or one on foreign policy or on police cooperation. These treaties would address one specific issue only – which seems much easier to communicate. These treaties would contain a list of competences for EU institutions as well as national institutions. Moreover, such an issue treaty would address the decision making in this specific policy area and  maybe even include  specific policy aims (reducing emission by 30%, creating a new agency or a new position, banning a certain chemical substance,  introducing a certain measure…whatever). One thing must be included however: if a country rejects one of those treaties, everyone must be clear about the consequences. Basically, a rejection would result in an opt out (similar to Schengen, Euro) but with the possibility to join later.  Of course the result would be an even more complex EU. But maybe this is the price to pay for a bigger and more diverse EU…

Neil MacFarlane

We may be living post-historically. Russia is not.

Russia Today

Opposition candidates will get the right to lose elections.

Mark Danner

If Everybody Knew, Who’s To Blame?

Timothy Garton Ash

Europe is nice, boring and irrelevant. In many ways this is a great achievement. (…) The whole of Europe today is Greater Switzerland.

Horst Schlämmer

HSP is conservative, liberal, left-wing and a bit ecological.

The new group took the name European Conservatives and Reformists (a contradiction in terms even in the name) but no-one thought to register any domain name for the new group before its establishment. So on 22nd June I had a look around to see what I could find – ecrg.info was still available and I purchased it and registered it with Google. Now more than 3 months on there is still no official ECR Group website as far as I can see, and the single page of my website has risen slowly up the Google results, so much so that I’m starting to get mails via the website from all sorts of organisations asking for information about the ECR’s MEPs and positions and even asking for speakers for conferences.

It is known that “Nabucco” is an opera  by Giuseppe Verdi…so why is the the Nabucco pipeline called like an opera? Hmm, maybe it has something do to with the story and mythology of the opera you might think. Or is it somehow linked to the ancient city state of Babylon? The name Nabucco ( in English Nebuchadnezzar, a Babylonian king) is also a symbol for freedom and independence…

Well, I doubt that pipeline politics is that philosophical. However, the official answer to this pressing question:

The first Nabucco meeting took place in Vienna. After the meeting the Consortium – at that time consisting of OMV, MOL, Transgaz, Bulgargaz and Botas – went to Vienna State Opera and enjoyed Nabucco from Giuseppe Verdi. Subsequent the Consortium went to dinner and when talks came to a potential name for die Pipeline, everyone agreed that it should be Nabucco.

Ok this is interesting but the reason for the decision is still unknown. Can it be linked to the stage stetting of the Vienna opera? Or was it the result of alcohol consumption during the diner? Or is there anything in the story that could have led to the decision?

Any ideas?

Obviously, there is no real debate about the question who should replace Verheugen since German elections will take place at the end of September. A couple of months ago, there were rumors (some more here) that Wolfgang Schäuble could be one of the potential candidates. I argued here why this is a pretty bad idea. The German government already indicated that it would like to have either the internal market, the competition or the industry portfolio.

Anyway a few days ago, Spiegel Online reported that Peer Steinbrück (check his wikipedia profile here – and his website here), currently finance minster, is a potential candidate. Merkel apparently wants to reward him for “his handling of the financial crisis”. According to this article the scenario is more likely if the SPD (that is part of a grand coalition with the CDU at the moment) looses the general elections and Merkel can form a CDU-FDP government – and Steinbrück, a SPD politician, would loose his job. So why would Merkel nominate somebody from the opposition? Apparently Barroso is active in the background:

Merkel has said in the past that the post should be filled by a member of her Christian Democrats. But Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has been urging European governments nominating their national candidates for the Commission to make sure that it isn’t staffed by too many conservatives.

It is pretty sure that nothing will be decided before the elections on 27 Sep. So we have to wait and see.

The video is a German perspective (with English subtitles!) on the recent security discourses surrounding surveillance and control in the name of “the war against terrorism”…

What about trusting your own citizens…?

This blog post is part of a campaign to restore trust and rebuild bridges initiated by the Anna Lindh Foundation. I blog for trust.

But at the same time it is rather difficult to write something about it. In a way, everything has already been said. That is why I keep it short.

If you only read one thing today:  Do read Mark Danner’s Voices from the Black Sites, his take on the Red Cross Torture Report and: If Everybody Knew, Who’s To Blame?

Some of you know that a couple of weeks ago  I have participated in a rather interesting seminar in Luxembourg which brought together a bunch of Bloggers from the Euro-Mediterranean region to discuss aspects of  inter-cultural dialogue.  Two things really stroke me:

First of all, it is really difficult to bring together such a group (just think of the Visa requirements + Israel and the Arab world) and that such a meeting is easier to organise on “neutral soil” (in this case Luxembourg) than in the region… Second thing is about intercultural dialogue in our home countries: 10 years ago I went to school in a very multicultural environment and strangely enough things like “identity” and “religion” were never a big issue at the time. Something has changed – and not for the better.

This cartoon by Clay Bennet (that won the 2002 Pulitzer prize for editorial cartooning)  somehow captures the political discourses quite well – and it does not matter wherever you live it is pretty much a global discourse.

This blog post (here is another one) is part of a campaign to restore trust and rebuild bridges initiated by the Anna Lindh Foundation. I blog for trust.