Ex-commissioner rejects idea of EU president

Date: 12/12/02

By Martin Banks

PLANS by France and the UK to create a powerful EU president have been dismissed as a "thoroughly bad" idea by a former commissioner.

Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair believe such a position would increase Europe's international prestige - and answer Henry Kissinger's famous question of whom the US President should ring when he phones Europe. The Anglo-French idea is also supported by Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar.

But there is considerable opposition to the plan among smaller member states, the European Commission and the Parliament. Now Peter Sutherland, EU competition commissioner in 1985-88, has joined the chorus of disapproval, branding it a "crazy" idea which "threatens the entire enlargement process".

Writing in a newsletter published by the Centre for European Reform, he says: "The plan is premature in the sense that it could only work if member states and the other EU institutions were unanimous in their support for a single figure to speak for Europe.

"Yet those most supportive of the new president reject the most effective route towards that objective - namely to build on the achievements of the Commission.

"Moreover, a Council president is likely to prove superfluous and merely would add to the present institutional confusion."

Irish-born Sutherland, president of the European Policy Centre Advisory Council, adds: "Presumably, the new president would need the support of new bureaucratic structures, well beyond the limited role of the existing council secretariat.

"But the creation of a new European civil service would complicate policymaking, increase costs for taxpayers and lead to competition between bureaucracies."

Plans by France and the UK to create a powerful EU president have been dismissed as a 'thoroughly bad' idea by a former commissioner.