New Europe shines on night of surprises

Date: 04/12/03

Is Donald Rumsfeld really the most loathed man in Europe? Not according to the voters in the EV50 Europeans of the Year awards, reports David Cronin

IT WAS a night of surprises, bold statements, lofty visions and tartan trousers.

There were two main topics of conversation for the 200 guests who attended the EV50 Europeans of the Year awards ceremony in Brussels' Palais d'Egmont on Tuesday night: Donald Rumsfeld's politics and Neil MacCormick's attire.

Despite the elegant gowns worn by the women present, it was the Scottish MEP who caused most heads to turn - for sporting the kind of tartan trousers that Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols used to wear back in 1977.

MacCormick, the event's compere, normally pursues his ambitions with a tenacity bordering on obsession. However, the erudite Scottish nationalist (this week named his country's top Euro-MP for the third consecutive year) is known to have been compromised in recent days. European Voice has learned that he planned to don a kilt for the gala, but was persuaded not to by his wife Flora (she told him that his kilt no longer fits him properly).

Perhaps this triumph for "girl power" was in revenge for the lamentably low number of women nominated for this year's awards. All but three of the EV50 chosen by a panel that included ex-premiers Wilfried Martens (Belgium), Carl Bildt (Sweden) and Mart Laar (Estonia) were men.

But Flora MacCormick was not the only woman to make an impact. Poland's Europe Minister Danuta Hübner was a popular choice among the 10,000 people who took part in an online poll organized by this newspaper for the seemingly gender-specific title of Statesman of the Year.

A vigorous defender of Polish interests in the future of Europe Convention, she accepted her crystal trophy on behalf of the 12 million Poles who voted "Yes" to EU entry in June.

Described by MacCormick as "not the likeliest pin-up of most people in this room," Donald Rumsfeld unfortunately did not attend the ceremony, despite being in Brussels for a NATO meeting this week.

His nomination in the Non-EU Citizen of the Year category has raised hackles of many critics of US foreign policy.

Still, the raison d'être of EV50 is to acknowledge those who have had the greatest bearing on European politics - for good or for ill.

And there is no doubt that America's Defense Secretary influenced this continent's rancorous debate on Iraq - by infamously dividing those countries for and against military action into "new" and "old" Europe.

Rumsfeld sent his representative in Europe, Evan G. Galbraith, to collect the award on his behalf. The silver-haired diplomat, who was Ronald Reagan's ambassador to France, good-humouredly stated that Rumsfeld would be content to know Iraq is "an issue about which reasonable men may differ" before concluding: "We'll see how it looks next year."

If there was a more chilled-out guy in Brussels that night, he was lying on a slab in the city morgue.

One man who has taken a diametrically opposed view to the Bush administration on Iraq is Robert Fisk (Journalist of the Year).

The veteran Beirut-based reporter was widely admired for his moving accounts of daily life during wartime in Baghdad and his trenchant criticizm of the US-UK decision to go to war without providing proof that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

But he also received a tongue-lashing from UK Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, who cast doubt on the accuracy of Fisk's reports about an attack with "smart-bombs" on an Iraqi marketplace, which claimed more than 60 lives.

Fisk delivered the most impassioned speech of the evening, proclaiming that he used to feel that journalists should be impartial observers of events, but now believes they should strive to hold politicians to account. "Our job is to monitor the centres of power, to take our governments to task, when they take us to war, especially when they lie about the reasons for it."

Fisk was the only recipient who could genuinely be described as anti-establishment.

However, Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary (Business Leader of the Year) also relishes spats with the authorities and couldn't resist provoking the Brussels elite in typical style.

He used the occasion for a spot of well-timed lobbying, urging the European Commission not to rule that Ryanair's deal with the Walloon regional government allowing it develop its European hub at Belgium's Charleroi airport at low cost constitutes illegal state aid.

O'Leary claimed his no-frills airline has been behind a "revolution", which has made air travel affordable for those on low incomes.

Despite being one of Ireland's richest men, he portrayed himself as a champion of the common people as he juggled with his award. "Air travel is not a privilege of the rich few but the right of everyone. It is time that you gave poor people a chance," he told the audience.

And in a touching moment of humility, he opined that people who had been in Baghdad this year were more deserving of awards than those who observed events from Dublin.

In a video message, Frenchman Pascal Lamy confessed surprise that he had been named Commissioner of the Year.

The trade chief also took a playful swipe at his compatriot and 2001 EV50 award-winner José Bové, the organic farmer who became an iconic figure for the anti-globalization movement after trying to demolish a McDonalds' fast food restaurant.

Lamy was nominated principally because of his role in breaking the logjam on the long-standing row over waiving intellectual property rights on medicines for treating such major diseases as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. His efforts finally bore fruit as a deal on the dossier was secured shortly before the failed World Trade Organization ministerial at Cancùn.

In theory, the price of drugs will now be cheaper, although relief agencies say they are uneasy that poor countries will have to fulfil numerous conditions before they can import low-cost generic medicines.

No eyebrows were raised, though, by Javier Solana's victory in the Diplomat of the Year category. Even if he has admitted frustration at being unable to secure a unified EU stance on Iraq, the continent-straddling high representative for foreign affairs has been skilfully chaperoning the Union's embryonic foreign policy through its childhood. In a pre-recorded message, Solana recalled that the EU has undertaken its first two military operations ever this year (in Macedonia and Congo) and is likely to take command of peacekeeping in Bosnia in 2004. "In the year 2000, people would probably not have believed that three years later the EU would be an actor in international affairs," he remarked.

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was another notable absentee. Just as in 2002, the septuagenerian French ex-president and chairman of the future of Europe Convention won the Visionary of the Year award for his input into the drafting of the EU's constitution.

Accepting the award on his behalf, Etienne de Poncins, spokesman for France's EU representation, made no attempt to play down the importance of Giscard's personal contribution to this work.

Instead, the diplomat said that if an agreement on finalizing the constitution can be found by Italy's EU presidency "two weeks from now, he will be seen not only as a visionary but as a statesman of Europe". It was even suggested that a future EU capital could be named "Giscard" in the same way as America named its capital after George Washington. Giscard will expect nothing less!

Given that this was the year when people in all ten incoming member states, bar Cyprus, voted in favour of joining the Union, it was only fitting that those who demonstrated exemplary leadership were applauded.

Alojz Peterle, the first head of a democratically-elected government in Slovenia (1990-92), was named Achiever of the Year. Through netting a highly coveted place on the Convention's steering body or praesidium, Peterle was the first person from one of the future member states to infiltrate the highest echelons of the EU institutions.

Peterle is accustomed to battling adversity - he has recovered from prostrate cancer with the aid of a spiritual healer.

And despite his mild manner, he was in a combative mood, paying tribute to those who suffered during Slovenia's rule by the Communist Party, which presided over the killings of 100,000 people after the Second World War.

His comments were interpreted as a jibe against the current ruling coalition in Ljubljana, which includes ex-communists.

If Rumsfeld's win was the big shock of the night, there was some mild surprise at the end of the evening when Maltese premier Eddie Fenech Adami was named as European of the Year 2003.

In fact, the diminutive leader of the tiny but intensely patriotic Mediterranean island (many of whose citizens it seemed voted for him in our online poll), was a very worthy winner.

The veteran Nationalist Party chief achieved two tremendous electoral successes in 2003. First, when his compatriots endorsed his call for joining the Union by a wafer-thin margin, the first accession state to do so and thus allaying fears that the smallest of the budding EU entrants would thwart enlargement. Then Adami gambled by immediately calling a general election, narrowly defeating the then anti-EU Labour Party.

The 69-year-old traced back Malta's European vocation to the time the Knights of St John were given tenure of the island in 1530.

The Maltese, he said, are passionate about politics, light-heartedly voicing disappointment that only 91% had participated in the referendum - around 5% lower than the normal turnout in elections.

"I was always sure the Maltese would make the right choice," he declared. "This is a homecoming for us. It is where we belong."

The ceremony was opened and closed by two former EU premiers. Wilfried Martens of Belgium, president of the European People's Party, set the scene with a sweeping overview of the year, expressing cautious optimism about the adoption of the EU's first constitution before the end of the year.

In contrast, the evening ended on a poignant note. Carl Bildt, former UN envoy to the Balkans and former Swedish premier, paid an elegant tribute to the two politicians assassinated in Europe this year. Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic and Sweden's Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, recalled Bildt, were both strong defenders of European integration, saying: "Europe is primarily carried forward by personalities, by conviction."

But Bildt, later spotted carousing with German Christian Democrat Elmar Brok (MEP of the Year) in the trendy Sablon district of Brussels, was not officiating at a funeral. Rather than mourning the passing of Djindjic and Lindh, he celebrated their lives with a toast.

Both would surely have approved.

Results of the 'European of the Year' poll carried out by European Voice.