Will new Commission chief bring EU’s ‘gangs’ together?

By David Cronin

Date: 01/07/04

UNTIL this week, José Manuel Barroso was best known to some as the man who hosted a summit between the leaders of the US, Britain and Spain in the Azores - just days before America's military might was unleashed on Iraq in March 2003.

Since that meeting on the windswept, volcanic Atlantic islands, the winds of electoral politics have not been kind to those leaders. José María Aznar lost the March election in Spain. UK voters turned against Tony's Blair's Labour in last month's European Parliament vote. The US President George W. Bush has a rendezvous with his electorate in November.

Portugal's prime minister could turn out to be the only one of the 'Azores four' whose political career is continuing on an upward trajectory.

His appointment to the post of European Commission president - albeit as a 'lowest common denominator' candidate - is testament to how he has succeeded both in remaining a steadfast US ally and avoiding a bust-up with the Franco-German 'engine' of the EU.

"Undoubtedly, he is a firm Atlanticist but he is also committed to European integration," says Charles Grant from the London-based Centre for European Reform. "He doesn't see any contradiction between the two - therefore, you could say he is a Blairite.

"The EU is still split between Tony's gang and Jacques' gang," Grant adds, referring to the ongoing ruckus between the leaders of the UK and France, Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac. "He [Barroso] is not one of the famous prime ministers, not one of the heavyweights in Europe. But I hope he can find a way of getting both gangs to work for a common goal."

Even though he has only been in office since the autumn of 2002, the Lisbon native has proven he can deliver on meeting key challenges of EU membership.

In that time, his centre-right coalition government has succeeded in bringing the budget deficit down from 4.4% to within the 3% ceiling set by the Union's Stability and Growth Pact.

The austerity measures - including a freeze on public sector pay - have been savaged by left-leaning opponents and could well prove a major factor in having his Social Democrat party defeated by the Socialists if, as is widely expected, his departure from Lisbon triggers a general election. "He has undertaken very unpopular measures in the past two years," comments Leonor Coutinho, a Portuguese economist with the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels.

"It was particularly difficult as the recession turned out to be worse in Portugal than in other places. But he had no real alternative. He held the view that this was the best thing for Portugal."

A journalist with a long experience of Iberian politics points out that Barroso demonstrated loyalty to Finance Minister Manuela Ferreira Leite when her retrenchment met with widespread resistance.

"Between the two of them they came under a lot of pressure over public- sector reform. But he did not give in. That has been a remarkable change. He has not been a weather vane like the previous prime minister [António] Guterres, who at the slightest whiff of opposition would give in."

His limited leadership experience notwithstanding, Barroso has amassed considerable experience in the foreign policy field. His greatest achievement was in 1990, when he brokered an agreement between warring factions in his country's former colony, Angola, ushering in a ceasefire after three decades of civil war. He has been involved in election supervision in Bosnia, advised the UN on the peace process in Tanzania and is the author of several tracts on development assistance and international relations.

Such was the enthusiasm with which the former Maoist student embraced conservatism that he has been compared to UK former premier Margaret Thatcher.

Because he has the blessing of the European Parliament's biggest group - the European People's Party (EPP-ED) - his acceptance by the assembly is not in serious doubt. Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, president of the Party of European Socialists, has bemoaned how right-leaning candidates have dominated the race for heading the EU executive, but it is not likely that MEPs from his political group will spark an institutional crisis by trying to block his appointment. However, some of the smaller groups in the Parliament - especially the Greens - are likely to vote against him in protest at his pro-US inclinations.

Several pundits have remarked that it will be essential for the new Commission chief to demonstrate better presentational skills than Romano Prodi, whose old-fashioned professorial demeanour did not seem suited to a media age where sound bites rule supreme. His language skills are expected to help the Portuguese get the message across - he is fluent in four European languages.

But one observer of Portuguese politics says that Barroso could be afflicted by the same problems as Prodi, contending that the Lisbon man "has an awkward delivery": "His big problem is being able to explain policy. His performances on television, particularly since he became prime minister, have not been good."