ANALYSIS: Who framed Tony Blair?

By Nicholas Rigillo Oct 30, 2009, 12:24 GMT

Brussels - Despite pleas to focus on policies rather than names, much of the talk among European Union leaders in Brussels this week was about whether Tony Blair should become their first ever president.

Britain's charismatic former premier had entered the race as a frontrunner. But his decision to back George W Bush's controversial war in Iraq while he was in office, and his failure to win over friends among fellow left-wing leaders, ultimately proved fatal.

'We have a common position concerning Mr Blair: we don't consider him a member of the socialist family,' is how Ramon Jauregui, a socialist politician from Spain put it Thursday.

It could be argued that the absence from the summit of one of his most powerful allies, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who was recovering from scarlet fever in Italy, did not help.

But there are more profound reasons for believing that the future president of the European Council will not be a global star from Edinburgh.

According to Piotr Kaczynski, an analyst at the Centre for European Policy Studies, a Brussels think tank, Blair's celebrity status was seen as posing too big a threat to some of Europe's inflated egos.

'For big figures in Europe, like French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, it would be very difficult to accept someone who is above them. They need a president who is fully controllable and predictable,' Kaczynski told the German Press Agency dpa.

Blair's celebrity status also jarred with the EU's smaller member states, who feared being sidelined during global talks, and Spain, which is set to take over the existing system of rotating presidencies from Sweden on January 1st.

It is perhaps no coincidence that Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriquez Zapatero was among the first to implicitly write off Blair by stating: 'We need a convinced European.'

And therein lay Blair's other main weakness. With Britain refusing to participate in two of the EU's biggest success stories - a single currency and the borderless Schengen area - most EU leaders simply don't consider it a full member of their club.

Some pundits suspect that Blair may never have wanted the job anyway.

According to British daily The Times, the former premier would only be prepared to give up his lucrative commercial interests for a job that would allow him to 'make a difference' for Europe.

And it is as yet unclear whether a President of the European Council, a post created by the EU's reforming Lisbon Treaty, will command enough power to impact on the world scene.

According to Hugo Brady, an analyst at the London-based Centre for European Reform, the job description is in fact more akin to a UN-style secretary general than a president.

'Normally, you have political power if you are elected, or if you have a democratic mandate. But the future president will have neither. We are talking about the EU equivalent of Kofi Annan,' Brady said.

Sarkozy had initially touted Blair for the job, but later backtracked.

One of his advisors was now arguing that the future president should be both a mediator and an immediately recognizable face worldwide.

'The perfect choice would be a rare species, capable of taking on both roles,' the advisor said.

If Poles were consulted, they would pick Merkel.

According to a poll published in Friday's daily Rzeczpospolita, support for the German chancellor was at 28 per cent in Poland. At 17 per cent, Blair came a distant second in the poll.

Since Merkel won't be giving up her present job any time soon, the rumour mill was now focussing its attention on alternative candidates.

According to the Dutch public broadcaster NOS, Dutch Christian Democrats were getting ready for the possibility that their party leader and current prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, might be leaving national politics to become EU president.

Seen as a strong compromise candidate, Balkenende enjoys the support of a number of smaller member states, but also of Europe's conservative members of the European Parliament.

Another candidate is Vaira Vike-Freiberga. The former Latvian president has an international outlook, having been raised in Canada, and has the advantage of being a woman.

The president of the European Commission and of the European Parliament have both called for more women to be appointed to the bloc's top jobs.