EU - FRANCE
Blair star guest at UMP conference
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Tony Blair is the main guest at the conference of the French UMP party with French President Sarkozy amid growing speculation that the former British PM could fill the future post of EU president.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
By AFP
Tony Blair is due to attend a conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Saturday amid resurgent speculation that the former British prime minister could fill the future post of EU president.
Blair joins Sarkozy, who has voiced support for the British Labour Party's most successful premier to take the job, at a meeting of the right-wing Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party in Paris.
Jean-Marc Ayrault, president of the Socialist group in the French parliament, is in no doubt as to what lies behind the Blair trip.
"I can see something going on with the UMP and a French president not averse to tactical manouevres, and that is to prepare Tony Blair's candidature for the European Union presidency," Ayrault said this week.
Blair's spokesman in London, Matthew Doyle, stopped short of ruling him out as future EU Council president but stressed that the former premier currently had his hands full as the international community's Middle East envoy.
"Mr Blair is focused on his current role in the Middle East," he told AFP.
Blair's name was one of those bandied around even before EU leaders last month signed the Lisbon reform treaty which enshrines the new president's post.
The job will be up for grabs in 2009 if the bloc's 27 member states can keep to their timetable and individually ratify the treaty over the next year.
The president's post, for a two-and-a-half-year term, would replace the current system whereby each country assumes the rotating presidency for six months.
Sarkozy was among the first to evoke the possibility of a president Blair in comments last October.
"He is a very remarkable man. He is the most European of Britons ... it would be intelligent to think of him," he said while being careful to also praise Luxembourg premier Jean-Claude Juncker as a classic EU "federalist" in contrast to Blair's support for the primacy of nation states.
Blair, who smoothed off the Socialist edges of the British Labour party to invent "New Labour", can also count on some support within the EU executive.
"He's definitely a very dynamic man, with a certain charisma and energy. He's not a bad leader at all, he has achieved a lot during his (Britain's EU) presidency in 2005 with the agreement on the EU budget until 2013. I have nothing against him," said one EU commissioner.
Blair's supporters also trumpet his close ties with the United States, which could help improve transatlantic relations, and his high international profile.
The EU president's post, which will be renewable once for any incumbent, is aimed at providing a personal face for the sometimes faceless European institutions.
It will require a strong character to help define the job from that of the EU "High Representative" for foreign affairs, a post also introduced in the treaty, and the European Commission president's role.
However Blair, who stepped down last June during his third term in office, is not everybody's cup of tea.
"Britain's exclusion of the common currency is a considerable blockage for him," said Andrew Duff, British liberal MEP and specialist on institutional questions.
"I suspect Blair is excluded from the list, it isn't a realistic option. It would be a mistake to pick an ex-PM of a large member state because the balance of power between big and small member states is a sensitive question."
He added that he doubted a Blair candidature would be backed by his arch-rival and successor as British prime minister, Gordon Brown.
For others, Britain's "semi-detached" attitude to Europe could also count against Blair.
As well as not adopting the euro, Britain has remained outside Europe's border-free Schengen zone and it secured key policy opt-outs in the same treaty that creates the president's post.
Among the other possible candidates cited in Brussels' corridors are former Polish president Alexander Kwasniewski, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern.
Blair joins Sarkozy, who has voiced support for the British Labour Party's most successful premier to take the job, at a meeting of the right-wing Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party in Paris.
Jean-Marc Ayrault, president of the Socialist group in the French parliament, is in no doubt as to what lies behind the Blair trip.
"I can see something going on with the UMP and a French president not averse to tactical manouevres, and that is to prepare Tony Blair's candidature for the European Union presidency," Ayrault said this week.
Blair's spokesman in London, Matthew Doyle, stopped short of ruling him out as future EU Council president but stressed that the former premier currently had his hands full as the international community's Middle East envoy.
"Mr Blair is focused on his current role in the Middle East," he told AFP.
Blair's name was one of those bandied around even before EU leaders last month signed the Lisbon reform treaty which enshrines the new president's post.
The job will be up for grabs in 2009 if the bloc's 27 member states can keep to their timetable and individually ratify the treaty over the next year.
The president's post, for a two-and-a-half-year term, would replace the current system whereby each country assumes the rotating presidency for six months.
Sarkozy was among the first to evoke the possibility of a president Blair in comments last October.
"He is a very remarkable man. He is the most European of Britons ... it would be intelligent to think of him," he said while being careful to also praise Luxembourg premier Jean-Claude Juncker as a classic EU "federalist" in contrast to Blair's support for the primacy of nation states.
Blair, who smoothed off the Socialist edges of the British Labour party to invent "New Labour", can also count on some support within the EU executive.
"He's definitely a very dynamic man, with a certain charisma and energy. He's not a bad leader at all, he has achieved a lot during his (Britain's EU) presidency in 2005 with the agreement on the EU budget until 2013. I have nothing against him," said one EU commissioner.
Blair's supporters also trumpet his close ties with the United States, which could help improve transatlantic relations, and his high international profile.
The EU president's post, which will be renewable once for any incumbent, is aimed at providing a personal face for the sometimes faceless European institutions.
It will require a strong character to help define the job from that of the EU "High Representative" for foreign affairs, a post also introduced in the treaty, and the European Commission president's role.
However Blair, who stepped down last June during his third term in office, is not everybody's cup of tea.
"Britain's exclusion of the common currency is a considerable blockage for him," said Andrew Duff, British liberal MEP and specialist on institutional questions.
"I suspect Blair is excluded from the list, it isn't a realistic option. It would be a mistake to pick an ex-PM of a large member state because the balance of power between big and small member states is a sensitive question."
He added that he doubted a Blair candidature would be backed by his arch-rival and successor as British prime minister, Gordon Brown.
For others, Britain's "semi-detached" attitude to Europe could also count against Blair.
As well as not adopting the euro, Britain has remained outside Europe's border-free Schengen zone and it secured key policy opt-outs in the same treaty that creates the president's post.
Among the other possible candidates cited in Brussels' corridors are former Polish president Alexander Kwasniewski, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern.
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