The fact that European Union leaders have not yet reached a consensus on who should become president of the 27-nation bloc, with time running out before a summit on who should  be given the post, has compounded my belief that they should scrap the idea all together.

During the horse-trading of the past few weeks I have found myself asking the question: why do we need an EU president, particularly since the bloc has at least one, if not two, capable presidents already.

Having covered the EU in some depth for the past six years and travelled with EU delegations to many events, notably with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, I have found the system seems to work well for the most part. 

The post of EU president was created to give Brussels more clout and respect in world affairs. The person was supposed to be instantly recognisable and charismatic to boost dwindling public confidence which hit rock bottom when French and Dutch voters rejected the EU’s draft constitution in 2005.

A ‘No’ vote in Ireland in 2008 on the Lisbon reform treaty that replaced the constitution also damaged the EU’s international standing. 

A U-turn by Irish voters in October showed there is less of a need for a superstar to lead Europe because, as an entity — driven by a strong euro currency — the EU has, I believe, emerged from the economic crisis in good shape from a public relations perspective.
Belgium’s little-known Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy has emerged as the latest frontrunner, or compromise candidate.  A straw poll of 10 people around the EU district in Brussels showed three knew he was Belgium’s leader, two said he was a Belgian politician, and five were
completely unaware of him. 

So, if at least half of this mix of EU officials, lobbyists and lawyers haven’t a clue who he is, what hope is there for the man or woman in Dublin, Warsaw or Prague ?

The previous favourite and long-time front-runner was former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The fact that he is on first-name terms with the world’s leaders and glitterati were his selling points. 

I have seen U.S. President Barack Obama change direction when out strolling during a G8 meeting to speak to his “friend Jose”.  Barroso is on first-name terms with just about all the world’s leaders after five years as Commission president.

If the EU wants a bit of showbiz, while in New York at the U.N. General Assembly, the former Portuguese Prime Minister was invited backstage by singer Bono at a sell-out concert by the Irish rock band U2. 

After the concert, Barroso went to an after-show party with the cream of stage, screen, music and fashion hosted by Rupert Murdoch for charity. He was seen holding the full attention of the Eurosceptical media mogul.

Under the current system, each member state holds the EU presidency for six months in turn. Giving a president a 2-1/2 year role is intended to give unrivalled continuity and make the EU more effective.

After working with more than 10 presidencies, I have found that some countries have strong presidencies and others do not — the problem is more with the country at the helm than with the system. 

The current Swedish presidency has been widely praised as pro-active, efficient, conciliatory, transparent and inclusive of all member states, taking into account all countries’ views and not just those of Paris, Berlin and London.

If Stockholm and Barroso are seen to work smoothly together, do we need to further complicate matters and add yet another European president ?

Photos: Top (clockwise from left): Leading contenders for EU President - Belgian PM Herman Van Rompuy, former British PM Tony Blair, Luxembourg PM Jean Claude Juncker, former Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, former Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Dutch PM Jan Peter Balkenende

Middle: Former British PM Tony Blair in the fast lane

Bottom: U2 singer and leading global aid campaigner Bono with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in Brussels

Photo; Irish "Yes" campaigners celebrate in Dublin, 3 Oct 2009/Cathal McNaughton)

Europe has become increasingly selfish and materialistic in the 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the heads of the Roman Catholic bishops' conferences across Europe said at the end of their three-day annual meeting at the weekend.  "The crisis sweeping Europe today is serious," they said in a statement after the session in Paris. They cited materialism, individualism and relativism as major challenges facing European society.

The bishops' sober assessment contrasted with the upbeat mood that the overwhelming "Yes" vote in Ireland's Lisbon Treaty referendum created.  It must be noted they drew up their statement before they'd heard the news from Dublin on Saturday. And their statement ended with a note of Christian hopefulness. Still, their diagnosis is so fundamental it's hard to imagine they would have changed much in the text.

Here's the way they put it:

"All that has happened since the fall of the Berlin Wall has been a great stepping stone in the European adventure... (but) twenty years later, we now see that the incredible European project, with a strong ethical basis, has greatly weakened... The hopes placed on building Europe have not so far been fulfilled. Here we take note of the influence of several factors:

• "The development of the European Union has gone hand in hand with a growth in consumption, at least for some people. The mere constant acquisition of goods will never fill people's hearts... The rules of the market and competition will never give birth to the ideal.
• "Present society wishes to give to the individual every possible opportunity to exercise individual choice and to seek personal fulfilment. In doing so it risks simply locking the individual into the defence of self-interest or acquired benefits... A society in which each individual, each group, each nation defends only their own vested interests cannot but be the jungle... We should not be surprised then if mafia and terrorist organizations thrive against this background...
• "A pluralistic society often risks being tempted by relativism, and particularly by ethical relativism. Each person sets their own norms and claims their own rights. Social life can only rest on common rules, on a vision of humanity that does not change according to shifting lobbies or opinion polls...

"The crisis sweeping Europe today is serious. Low birth rates and the future of its demography do not lead to optimism. However, we do not intend to be prophets of doom. Things are not necessarily doomed to get worse! Our faith calls us turn our attention to the European society in which we live, and to gaze on it with hope."

Do you think materialism, individualism and relativism are the main problems nagging Europe? If so, will it take more than the feel-good factor from the Irish vote to put "EU show... back on the road" again?

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If this morning’s flight from Brussels to Dublin is an indication of how Irish people will vote in Friday’s referendum on the EU’s Lisbon reform treaty, then the result will be an emphatic Yes on Saturday afternoon when the final results are expected to be known.

The majority of the Aer Lingus flight packed with Irish diaspora from Brussels - some of who hold office in the EU capital - seemed set to vote Yes to the Lisbon treaty, which aims to give the 27-nation bloc greater sway in world affairs and streamline its decision-making.

Irish MEP (member of the European Parliament) Liam Aylward said he was “quietly confident” of a positive vote in favour for the treaty.

The Fianna Fail politician from Ireland’s eastern region was accompanied on the flight by his British Liberal colleague Andrew Duff, who was among the lawmakers who helped shape the new Lisbon treaty after French and Dutch voters rejected the EU’s doomed constitution in 2005.

“I am travelling to Dublin because I want to hear from the people themselves, whether they vote Yes or they vote No. I am not going to make any predictions,” Duff said.

Irish voters rejected the Lisbon treaty in a referendum in June 2008, plunging the bloc into crisis and halting its expansion.

Polls ahead of Friday’s plebiscite pointed towards a victory for the Yes camp this time around after the Irish government received guarantees from its EU partners in the sensitive areas of military neutrality, taxation, abortion and the right to retain an Irish commissioner in Brussels.

Many of those on board the flight are employed by the European Commission, European Parliament or Ireland’s representation to the EU and so had personal reasons for making the trip to the Emerald Isle to vote.

“My career could take a turn for the worst this weekend if we don’t vote Yes,” a Commission official said, but asked not to be named.

“How could you apply for a promotion, take home a decent salary from the EU after voting No. It would be really embarrassing and hypocritical.”

But not all had ulterior motives for voting Yes.

Carol McGinley, who runs the Brussels office for Ireland’s main dairy organisation, and Anne-Marie McCourt, assistant to independent MEP Marian Harkin, both faced at least a three-hour journey by bus on landing in Dublin, before casting their vote in their respective constituencies.

“I just had to vote. Every vote counts. I felt a real duty to vote, especially after last time,” Carol said referring to Ireland’s first referendum on the treaty in June 2008 which resulted in victory for the No camp.

Even the few nay-sayers I could find among the 130-plus on board the flight, seemed resigned to defeat.

“I am a staunch opposer of the treaty, but it looks like the tide is against us,” said Brian Carty, who works for Sinn Fein — the only mainstream political party opposing the treaty.

“You can never say never, but it looks like a Yes vote this time around.”

(Picture: A man adjusts an Irish flag as it flies next to a European Union flag near the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels. Reuters/Francois Lenoir.)

“Happy is he who calls himself a Turk.”

One of the first things that catches your attention when you drive out of the airport of Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast, is Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s famous phrase engraved on mountain slopes in big white letters.

Bent on building a secular and modern Turkey after World War One, Ataturk carved a united Turkish nation out of the disparate ethnic and religious groups that inhabited the old Ottoman empire — sometimes by forced “Turkification” as was the case with ethnic Kurds.

That once-monolithic nation state is slowly being dented as pluralism becomes an acceptable fact of life in Turkish society.

Turkey’s announcement this week that it is preparing a “democratic opening” for Kurds has raised hopes the EU candidate country might launch bold reforms to end a conflict that has killed 40,000 people and brought pain to many more.

Cynics have been quick to point out the plan, which might include political, cultural and economic measures, is timed to pre-empt a “road map” that jailed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan has said he will announce on Aug. 15.

But regardless of its timing, there is no doubt that Turkey is changing.

Unthinkable only a few years ago, there is talk in Ankara’s corridors of power of a “Kurdish initiative”, an “Alevi initiative”, an “Armenian initiative” and even a “Greek Orthodox initiative”.

Ultra-nationalists and diehard statists are crying treason, fearing the dismemberment of the republic, and have accused the government of selling out Turkey to the European Union and the United States.

Some secular conservatives, always suspicious of a government with roots in political Islam, see change as part of a hidden plot to subvert Turkey’s secular constitution and promote religion in public life.

Many of these changes have been motivated by Ankara’s desire to join the EU and meet membership criteria, such as expanding rights to minorities and more free speech. Critics say the government is using the EU to advance its own agenda, and free the strictures on religious freedoms of Muslims.

But they also respond to demands from an increasingly dynamic, urban and diverse society open to global trends.

Bronze statues of Ataturk still gaze over Turkey decades after they were built but some of his ideals, such as a single Turkish nation using a single language, might be obsolete.

“Turkey belongs to the Turks,” goes another of Ataturk’s commonly cited phrases, but Turks are also more worldly.

The thriving middle class goes on holidays to Europe and other world destinations. News from all corners of the world is broadcast 24 hours a day. This has brought a different understanding toward diversity within its own borders.

The Kurdish, Alevi, Armenian, and Greek Orthodox initiatives reflect the growing pressure Turkey is facing to redefine a straightjacket notion of identity which no longer fits its society, analysts say.

Some newspapers have speculated the government is considering removing open displays of the “Happy is he who calls himself a Turk” slogan in the mainly Kurdish southeast to ease tensions. For years, Turkey’s official ideology had rejected the notion that Kurds were a separate ethnic group and the display of the slogans was seen as an attempt at forced assimilation.

“Turkey still has a long way to go to solve these issues, but the fact that we have moved from the stage of chronic problems to that of initiatives is noted by everyone,” Ibrahim Kalin wrote recently in the pro-government Zaman daily.

The Czech Republic has got what amounted to a disappointing end-of-term report from the European Parliament.

In a debate this week on the six-month Czech presidency of the European Union, Prime Minister Jan Fischer said that although the first six months of 2009 would go down in EU history as a demanding period, Prague had got through “without major hiccups”.

Few people in the assembly seemed to agree. Deputies said there had been some successes, but overall were underwhelmed.

“The Czech presidency will not go down in history in the way that we had hoped,” said Alexander Lambsdorff, a German from the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats.

“What we would have liked the Czech presidency to achieve in terms of challenges has unfortunately not happened,” said Rebecca Harms, a German member of the Greens. “Unfortunately your country was weak.”

Holding the presidency was never going to be easy for a relatively small and new member state with a eurosceptic president in Vaclav Klaus.

Matters were made worse by two crises in January - Russia’s gas price dispute with Ukraine and an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip - and the fall of Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek’s government midway through the presidency.

Topolanek upset the European Parliament by saying U.S. efforts to end the economic crisis were a “path to hell” and Klaus prompted a walkout when he addressed the assembly.

There was also criticism of an artwork that was erected at EU headquarters but was later removed. The map of Europe by a Czech artist depicted Bulgaria as a toilet and Romania as a Dracula theme park. 

Even so, the parliament’s feedback was not all bad. Fischer won praise for his work after taking over the government and the presidency. Some deputies said Prague had done well in standing up to protectionist moves and hailed its work in securing agreement on an overhaul of financial regulations and on measures intended to encourage Irish voters to back the EU’s Lisbon reform treaty.   

“The Czech presidency proved a mid-sized country and so-called new member state can really do a very good job,” said Jan Zahradil, a Czech member of the European Conservatives and Reformists group.

But overall the assessment was damning. Expectations are much higher for the Swedish presidency for the rest of the year.

“The Czech presidency has followed a depressingly familiar pattern,” said Nigel Farage, leader of the eurosceptic UK Independence Party. “What we’ve got is an over-regulated model that is serving us very badly during the depths of a recession.”

He, however, singled out what he called one wonderful moment - when Klaus accused EU leaders of not listening to European citizens and told them some “home truths”, prompting some members of the assembly to walk out.

“At least for Vaclav Klaus, we thank you very much for the last six months,” Farage said.

 Pat Cox, Joseph Borrell, Hans-Gert Poettering and now Jerzy Buzek. What do they have in common ? For those outside the EU bubble in Brussels, Polish conservative Buzek was elected on Tuesday as the new president of the European Parliament, following in the footsteps of the others mentioned above.
    But does anyone really care ?
 I asked on Facebook if anyone could name the previous two presidents and from those of my friends who do not work in any of the European Union institutions, I received numerous responses ranging from Barack Obama to Seamus & Sheila McSpud.

 In his first media interview after taking over as the head of the EU’s directly elected assembly in 2007, Poettering told me he was going to make the European Parliament one of the best-known legislatures in the world.

 Poettering’s closeness to German Chancellor Angela Merkel was supposed to give him a greater voice and increase parliament’s influence over EU legislation, notably on climate change and financial regulation.

 But even with greater media coverage of the EU’s co-legislature, notably of the committees responsible for these important areas of competence, June’s election still resulted in a record-low turnout and further diluted public opinion of the parliament.

So, can former Polish Prime Minister Buzek — the first assembly president from a former Soviet bloc country — succeed where his predecessors failed and put the European Parliament on the international map ? I doubt it.

A lush green residential area in the south of Stockholm embodies Sweden’s determination to lead from the front in its efforts to combat climate change during its presidency of the European Union.

A decade ago, Hammarby Sjostad was a run-down industrial area with pollution problems. Today it is an environmentally friendly suburb which exemplifies the battle against climate change – one of Sweden’s priorities in its six-month presidency which began on Wednesday.

By 2018, Hammarby Sjostad will have almost 11,000 residential homes. Many are already built and 15,000 people already live in the tree-lined area next to a lake.

Most of the building materials are environmentally friendly, many have solar panels to heat water, and 50 percent of electricity and heat consumption comes from recycled organic and combustible waste. Waste water is also used in the heating system.

“Everything is recycled. All waste is regarded as useful material in one way or another,” architect Bjorn Cederquist said during a visit to Hammarby Sjostad.  

An innovative waste disposal system uses vacuum suction to send rubbish at high speed through underground pipes to a disposal unit on the edge of the town. This drastically reduces pollution because the garbage trucks that eventually take the rubbish away spend little time in the town itself and cover far less ground.

Biogas, an environmentally friendly fuel, is extracted from the digestion of sewage sludge from a waste treatment plant and used in buses, cars and cookers.

Hammary Sjostad is at the forefront of efforts to clean up the environment and Stockholm, where  people can be seen fishing in the city centre, plans to be free of fossil fuel by 2030.

“This is the achievement of a struggle for decades. When I was a kid, you could not swim in the centre of Stockholm,” said Gunnar Soderholm, director of Stockholm’s environment and health administration.

Sweden will need such determination in its efforts to find a common EU position for global climate change talks in Copenhagen in December which are intended to secure an agreement on a new global deal to limit harmful emissions.

 “The main challenge of our generation is climate change and we will do everything in our power to achieve a climate change agreement in December,” Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt told a news conference on taking over the EU presidency from the Czech Republic on Wednesday. 

He said Sweden had cut emissions by 10 percent since 1990 but still managed to increase economic growth by about 50 percent in that time, helped by a carbon tax for industry which puts about 20 euro cents on the price of a litre of petrol.

The problem will be getting others to follow suit. The EU has led the way but developing countries want financial assistance from wealthy countries to help them combat climate change and cut emissions. Some of the poorer EU member states are wary of an agreement to share the burden of helping poor countries.

The EU has no power to impose CO2 taxes on member states and Sweden acknowledges it faces a hard task winning others over.

Reinfeldt said he was encouraged by recent signs that the United States is more ready to tackle climate change under President Barack Obama and hopes to win China’s backing for a deal to limit rises in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius. But Japan, he said, needed to do more to battle climate change.

Reinfeldt said he would address climate changes issues in the summits he will take part in over the six months with countries including the United States, Russia, China, Ukraine, China, Brazil, India and South Africa.

“We need global answers to a global problem,” he said. 

The results of European Parliament election have caused deep concern in European Union candidate Turkey, where gains made by conservatives and some far-right parties have been read as a  clear win by the “No to Turkey” camp” and thus a blow to Ankara’s already troubled EU membership quest.

Trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, Turkish  Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan dismissed the vote as a “futile effort by those who cannot digest Turkey’s enormity and strategic importance”. He said politicians who vilified Turkey to win votes in the short term would be judged by history.

Erdogan was probably referring to anti-immigration parties  that have openly campaigned against predominantly Muslim Turkey’s accession bid, among them the Dutch Freedom Party of  Geert Wilders who promised that Turkey would not join the  union: “Not in 10 years, not in a million years.”

But last week’s results certainly don’t bode well for Erdogan’s European dreams and come as pressure is mounting for Ankara to push ahead with long-delayed reforms.

The European Parliament has no power to make decisions on EU enlargement, but the European Commission is expected to bear in mind how people voted in the election when shaping policy over coming months. The European Parliament also publishes periodic assessments of progress in Turkey and has been critical in the past of Ankara’s record on human rights, freedom of expression and police mistreatment, to name a few areas.

So-called “friends of Turkey” such as Britain’s Gordon Brown, Spain’s Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and Germany’s Social Democrats suffered significant defeats, deepening a sinking feeling in Ankara that it is being left alone to face the wolves.

Meanwhile, the European Commission in December will review its decision to freeze eight of 35 “chapters” — or membership areas — because of Turkey’s refusal to open its ports to Cypriot vessels.

Will France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel — who oppose full membership for Turkey and whose parties did well in the European Parliament vote — press for Turkey’s EU membership to be put on hold?

Are Turkey and the EU heading for a clash?  

As people across the European Union vote in a European
Parliament election, is it perhaps time to consider making voting in each country compulsory by law?

The build-up to the election has been dominated by talk of voter apathy and how low the turnout will be at the polls. This has drowned out discussion of policies and how to bring about changes in government.

As an Irishman living in Belgium,  I must vote in the elections or face a hefty
fine. My first response to this five years ago was: How dare they
tell me what to do ? But on further reflection, it may make sense.

It is annoying to listen to people who haven’t voted for
years trying to put the world to rights by complaining about
their government or engaging in a bit of “Euro bashing”.
The only way they can make a difference is to vote.

Voting is compulsory on the election in Belgium, Cyprus, Greece
and Luxembourg.

Pollsters say a low turnout favours the extreme left and
far-right parties because they can mobilise their voters while 
mainstream voters are more likely to stay at home. 

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso also made
the point that there is another issue at stake — that most
countries in Europe have experienced bloodshed without which
people may never have had the right to vote in some countries. He
appealed to voters not to scorn this chance to vote.

By Caroline Linton

The gloves are off in the run-up to this week’s European Parliament election. 

The Party of European Socialists (PES) has published a list of 11 rival candidates it describes as terrible and invites readers to complete the list by adding a 12th candidate of his or her choice. The PES’ centre-right rivals, the European People’s Party (EPP), has hit back by calling it ”cheap populism”.

The list is headed by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and includes Jaime Mayor Oreja, a Spanish member of the European Parliament, and British National Party candidate Nick Griffin. Griffin, Igor Gräzin of the Estonia Reform Party and Derk-Jan Eppink of the Belgian Lijst Dedecker are the only three representing groups that are not part of the EPP.

PES officials said the candidates on the list would not contribute anything positive to parliament. In the case of Berlusconi, the PES’ complaint is that he has no intention of sitting in any of Italy’s five electoral regions. It said sed Oreja had not spoken in the parliament since November 2007 and had failed to condemn the authoritarian rule of General Francisco Franco, who ruled Spain from 1936 until 1975. 

It rejected statements by Eppink about what he called the the difficulty of being “a white, heterosexual Dutchman with a good job and an expensive car” in the Belgian region of Flanders. It criticised Brice Hortefeux, France’s social affairs and employment minister, for saying illegal immigrants were neither “honest” nor “clean”. Griffin has been condemned for denying the Holocaust.

EPP President Wilfried Martens issued a statement condemning the publication of the list and said it was a new low for the PES leadership.

“To call a number of distinguished EPP candidates ‘terrible’ as the PES did today or calling our millions of supporters across Europe ‘barbarians’ as the President of the Socialist International did last week, is truly regrettable,” Martens said. “I am convinced that the European citizens will punish the populism of the Socialists at the polls.”

The PES also suggested the EPP was such a broad alliance that voters who back a party in their home country could be backing a party in another country with policies and candidates he or she did not approve of.

Even so, the PES brings together various ideologies as well, with members ranging from the British Labour Party to the Social Democratic Party in Germany.