Editorial II January 2010IN RANDOM ORDER
What is most striking in the press review of the last fortnight in January is the substantial absence of strong issues shared by one and all and the lack of passion shown when dealing with European matters. At the time when what had been expected to be the “great turning point” had at last materialised, that is Europe under the leadership of its new governance, there has been no enthusiasm whatsoever for the new situation. The criticism levelled against the behaviour of the European summits is widespread, but it cannot be said that there is a real “issue,” not even in some rather striking cases of weakness. Of course, many newspapers have noticed how, when facing a tragedy of the proportions of that of Haiti, the EU has stood out for its absence and incapacity. Lady Ashton has been, to say the least, evanescent, van Rompuy ghost-like and Barroso has not dealt with the matter in the least. Some people, very few actually, have defended them with the argument that in any case they could do no more than send aid, but the chaos in which the assistance to the earthquake victims of the Caribbean island is being delivered raises more than one question mark over that void. From a certain point of view, we could say that the European press’ welcome to the new leadership has been negative on the whole. Lady Ashton has been hit by a barrage of fire, starting from the British press: what has been mercilessly stressed is her scarce competence, her total ignorance of any foreign language apart from her own (her good fortune that it is English is not a good enough excuse), not to mention her lack of a political line. However, that is more or less where things end. Here, as elsewhere, there had not really been a “press campaign” to come to terms with this wound inflicted by the insipience of the European Heads of State upon a key point of the architecture of the Lisbon Treaty. Things went just a little better for van Rompuy, because there are people who see in his action a subterranean work to earn space, taking it away from the grey Barroso and the invasiveness that still exists on the part of the semester-long Presidencies. In this regard, it is quite significant that Zapatero’s efforts to cut out some space for himself on the stage have been largely snubbed by the European newspapers, except for the Spanish newspapers close to the Government that have tried to disguise the usual liturgical lists of things to be done as political manifestos. The worst treatment was reserved as usual to Barroso, who came out to position the new Commissioners, who have generally been seen as highly disappointing. Naturally, the person who cut the worst figure was the Bulgarian Commissioner Rumiana Jeleva, failed by the European Parliament for manifest incapacity and for the fact that her husband was involved in business affairs not considered to be wholly transparent. However, what is striking in this case is that the press has sought more to underline the important role played by the European Parliament (a significant aspect, no doubt) that to highlight the weakness of a country that has had recently been bundled into the Union that is putting forward a candidate who is so poorly qualified and who is the Foreign Minster of her country to boot. In short, nothing really seems capable of stirring up public opinion. Even on issues that were once very hot like Turkey’s membership or the control of immigration and refugee flows, there is no more than the occasional in-depth analysis article. So are those who in the past fortnight have reverted to arguing that Europe remains a project of the elites that does not involve the populations right? We wish to be doubtful about that, because once the elites were wary, pugnacious and quite visible at least in the opinion-making press, whereas now the European question seems to have been relegated to the role of being the concern of the classes shaping the politics of the various nations. Even the great economic issue has lost its bite. The news that on the 11th February there will be a great European conference to define a strategy for the crisis has not had more space given to it that what has been dedicated to the routine news on international politics. Some analysts put this drop in interest down to the loss of sheen of the famous Paris-Berlin axis, placing the blame mainly on Chancellor Merkel, who has been less attentive to EU affairs than she used to be at the time when she was the leader of the Great Coalition. Juncker’s confirmation at the helm of the Eurogroup, the subterranean competition between van Rompuy and Barroso on the management of the economic conference, the nightmare of Greek bankruptcy, that is of a Eurozone country, are all elements that ought to have stimulated a livelier attention towards the future of the Union. The same dynamic of the distribution of important posts among the management executives in the offices of the various Commissioners, with the predominant presence of Germans, the French and the British, served merely as a footnote to say that, at bottom, things have gone as they always do. Too little for an organism that aspires to become a leading player in world development.
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