Brussels, 22/08/2005 (Agence Europe) -Tony Blair's speech to the European Parliament in Brussels on 23 June was "brilliant, and if this language is sustained and the actions of the UK Presidency over the next six months are consistent with it, Blair could emerge not only with a budgetary deal but also with a major role in the shaping of the Union over the next few years”. However, Tony Blair's actions do not always correspond to his declarations, so that it is reasonable to ask who the real Mr Blair is. This is the view put forward by Peter Ludlow on his latest EuroComment, entitled Demagogy or Sound Management? Alternative Profiles of the UK Presidency of the European Union. As the title indicates, there is no love lost between the author and the UK Presidency. “It would be splendid if after eight disappointing years, New Labour could begin at last to play a serious role at the heart of Europe", but Tony Blair's “failure do so hitherto has been as regrettable as it is mysterious”, with someone who claims to be a passionate European governing for a period marked by "the most dramatic erosion of support for the EU since the United Kingdom joined it", added Mr Ludlow. The author is even more scathing about Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, who is typically “arrogant and rude” on European affairs. To anyone who claims that Brown's excesses over Europe will lead to his own downfall, Mr Ludlow points out that "Brown has been talking like this for years and this has not stopped him from positioning himself as Prime Minister in waiting". As for the Prime Minister, "even if the new Mr Blair is the real Mr Blair, he has taken an awfully long time to show himself", said Peter Ludlow.
On the substance, Mr Ludlow is particularly unconvinced on the point of Mr Blair's appeal to launch a major debate on the future of Europe and of his decision to call an informal European Council in the autumn to reflect on the European social model. What is the point of this initiative, he asks, adding that "two hypotheses suggest themselves". The first is that the "real purpose of the exercise is to show the world once again just how badly the French, Germans and Italians are doing (...). In the light of the public debate in the United Kingdom and, in particular, the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, this idea is, unfortunately, only too plausible. But if this is the objective, it is singularly stupid, and can only be counter-productive". The second hypothesis is "more respectable, but no more convincing", warns Mr Ludlow, specifying: "the objective will be to change both the agenda and functioning of the Community system". "We are all reformers now", he states ironically, warning: "The Union is (…) a highly complex and in many ways very mature political system", and thus has no need for the "great simplifiers London is full of". He gives an example: the CAP reforms of 2003, which are already starting to have an impact and which are to be re-examined in 2008, plus the "sugar" reform are currently on the table, "are incomparably more useful and relevant than the demagogy about the iniquities of the CAP that has come out of London in the last few weeks". "One is obliged therefore to ask what in concrete terms the UK Presidency hopes to achieve through its informal European Council" (see EUROPE 9000 on Chancellor Schroeder's misgivings and EUROPE 9001 on those of Jean-Claude Juncker).
At a time when Europe is somewhat in the doldrums, the primary duty of a Presidency must be to "broker and articulate" a consensus between all the Member States, Mr Ludlow stresses. However, it appears that the British government has high hopes for "life after Schroeder”, he notes, predicting that " an exclusive alliance or even a special relationship" between Germany and the United Kingdom is "highly improbable", if for no other reason than the "Turkish dimension", on which Angela Merkel takes the opposite position to London.
The real test for the UK Presidency will be the budgetary negotiations and the "great debate" on the future of Europe and its social model, indicates Peter Ludlow, adding: for the financial perspectives 2007-2013, "Jean-Claude Juncker persuaded the French and their allies to move a very long way. The British will presumably need to make further demands. Everything will however depend on the reasonableness of these demands and the tone in which they are made. This in turn will be greatly influenced by the Presidency's conduct of the 'great debate'. Some more Blair speeches at home along the lines of his speech to the European parliament in June would be a tonic. A few more aggressive tirades of the kind that Gordon Brown specialises in would be exaclty the opposite”. According to Peter Ludlow, while it is "just possible to imagine a happy ending" for the UK Presidency, it is, however, "considerably easier to imagine an unhappy one", with scenarios ranging " from disappointing to downright awful". He feels that the "least bad result" would be for the Presidency to "acknowledge that a budgetary agreement is impossible" to allow the forthcoming Austrian Presidency to assume the role of "honest broker" in this case. However, he fears that there will be a fight over the budget next December, and that it will be followed "shortly afterwards by the accession of Mr Brown to the post of Prime Minister and the start of a propaganda war comparable to the Thatcher years, only worse". (Info: EuroComment SA, 28 avenue Général Eisenhower, 1030 Brussels. Tel: +32 2 241 5232. info@eurocomment.be).