I have Professor Dusan Sidjanski, president of Geneva's "European Cultural Centre", to thank for anything I can tell my readers about the European beliefs of the president designate of the European Commission, José Manuel Durao Barroso. We all know that the main question mark about him (raised by the European Parliament in particular) related to his European convictions and ambitions (see this column of 1 July). Among the conditions for it to support the new Commission President, the Socialist Group included a commitment to Europe, and the ability to get public opinion mobilised around an ambitious European project. On this first point, I can now bring a few elements in response, to add to the initiative already taken by the president "in pectore", to present himself to the political groups of the EP, should they wish it, before his speech to the plenary in Strasbourg.
Deep roots. One might note that for an accomplished politician, it is never difficult to find the right words when the circumstances call for it. But what I would like to quote from Mr Barroso's European past precedes his appointment to the presidency of the Commission by some twenty years. His interest in European unification is very deeply rooted, and dates back to his university years. His dissertation for his diploma in Political Science (1981, published simultaneously in Lausanne and Lisbon in 1983, well before Portugal joined the EC on 1 January 1986) was on "the Portuguese political system and European integration". It was be followed by a diploma from the University of Geneva under Denis de Rougemont. Having spotted the post-graduate's "exceptional qualities", Professor Sidjanski offered him a post as his assistant, which he held for over five years. After a PhD at the University of Georgetown (United States), he was offered the job of Secretary of State in Lisbon, and thus began his national political career, which would lead him to the posts of Foreign Minister (from 1992 to 1995) and then, at the age of 46, of Prime Minister, whilst maintaining the double vocation of academic and politician, as demonstrated by his speech in November 2003, for example, followed by a debate at the "Latsis Foundation" on "the role of small States in a large Europe". In the meantime, he wrote the foreword to Dusan Sudjanksi's book "The Federalist Future of Europe", published in 1992 by "Presses Universitaires de France".
A conception of the Commission and its role. Moving on to the main thing: what does Professor Barroso, Foreign Minister and Prime Minister of Portugal, say about Europe? I have drawn most of these quotations from the aforementioned speech on "the role of small States in a large Europe". He disapproves of "misunderstandings, occasionally even arguments about the role and importance of the States in relation to their size", stating: "for those who, like me, genuinely believe in the European project, there is a problem here. The temptation to follow a logic of purely intergovernmental power is a real one. If this prevailed, it would certainly be the end of the Union, in any case of this Union". He believes that the debate on this subject "has no real foundation" The only thing a State can be judged on is the quality of its contribution to communal life: "Whether a State has a few tenths of a percentage point more or less of power in decision-making within the Council will not change much in our lives, or in that of others". However, he acknowledges that "we should take the relative size of the States into account and there are several reasons for this weighting: but for the fundamental issues, everybody's voice has more or less the same weight". He then launched into a passionate defence of the Community method, "which wisely combined equal rights, genuine involvement of all in decisions, solidarity and respect for national specificities, and which also takes reality into account" (and therefore the different sizes of the States). He sees the Community method as "a fundamental aspect of the European project", and it is on the basis of this statement that he spoke about the Commission.
He believes that defending the Union's general interests "depends first and foremost on the action of a strong and independent Commission", adding: "I cannot emphasise the importance of a strong and independent Commission enough. If, as some people wished, we had an increasingly minor Community dimension, there would be a huge risk of confrontation between the States; the purely intergovernmental logic could undermine some of the fundamental principles behind European construction".
It would be interesting to quote a few more passages. But whilst we wait and see what he says to the MEPs, I would like to reiterate that these quotations were spoken by an existing Head of Government, a long time before he was appointed President of the Commission.
(F.R.)