Hooray! Today’s the day that the Lisbon Treaty finally comes into effect in the European Union! As a result, the Union’s operations will from now on supposdly be more transparent, more effective, and more democratic. Those, at least, are the three elements that made up the principal content of the Laeken Declaration issued by EU leaders at their summit in December, 2001, in which they noted how the actual operation and accomplishments of the Union had become disappointing to so many, and so called for the setting-up of a convention to consider what could be done about that.

Inevitably, there remain many within the boundaries of the EU who go beyond mere disappointment to an outright rejection of that process that began at Laeken (that’s in Belgium, by the way) and ended up, through many twists and turns that included a rejected EU Constitution, with the Lisbon Treaty. Most prominent in this regard are the Czechs, if only because Czech president Václav Klaus was the last obstacle to the ratification of that treaty, holding out until only one month ago. Klaus was finally forced to knuckle under, but Czech anti-Lisbon opinion will not let this day pass without at least one more loud cry of protest. Thus it is that we get this article in today’s on-line edition of the Czech daily Lidové noviny. (Those signs brandished in the photo up top read “We want a Europe of free nations” and “We don’t want EU vetoes/prohibitions”; and the Czech word “dost” that’s also there simply means “enough.”)

That this sort of piece should appear on lidovky.cz is no surprise, since that newspaper – otherwise quite a mainline Czech broadsheet worth recommending, by the way – has through the years consistently provided a platform for the writings of Václav Klaus, whether in or out of power. This time it’s not Klaus himself who wrote the article – he’s still president, after all, so that would truly be rather too awkward – but instead one Michal Petřík, an advisor to President Klaus. (more…)

The European Union’s Lisbon Treaty is set to officially go into force on Tuesday (December 1), but the breakthrough that finally assured that that would happen after all came a month ago, when Czech president Václav Klaus finally signed it on November 3. By that point it was also clear that Commission President José Manuel Barroso had enough support to be re-appointed to his position for another seven-year term, so that Klaus’ signature set off a scramble, led by Barroso but by no means under his full control, to name the appointees for the EU’s list of top jobs a list slightly-expanded by the new treaty.

The headlining appointments were of course the new posts of EU President (actually, “President of the European Council”) and High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. These went, respectively, to Belgian premier Herman van Rompuy and to the English Baroness Ashton, who has been serving as EU trade commissioner – two relative nonentities whose selection says quite a lot, most of it discouraging, about the sort of political horse-trading that lies at the heart of how EU politics operates. But just as significant is the composition of the new 27-member team of EU commissioners, with Mr. Barroso at their head, since this truly constitutes the EU’s “cabinet” of leaders heading bureaucratic departments (actually termed “Directorates-General”) covering specific areas of policy. It is the changes and personnel-shifts occurring here that offer insights into transformations in policies and priorities over the past five years since the last EU Commission was formed. (more…)

Things are moving along rapidly with José Manuel Barroso and his new European Commission, scheduled to come into office next November 1. As I noted a week ago, Barroso came up with his set of twenty-four portfolio-name pairs two weeks before the deadline he had promised, and yesterday these twenty-four met together in Brussels for a first “getting-to-know-you” session. At the same time, Barroso gave his first interview to the press since being named Commission President last month, which turned out to be a collective interview to reporters from five German newspapers. (Among which Munich’s Süddeutsche Zeitung. Note that this SZ article is not in interview form per se, but instead reports the points Barroso made.) That they happened to be German newspapers was not just a tribute to that country’s position as the Union’s leading population and greatest economic power. (more…)

On Thursday the new European Union Commission President José Manuel Barroso unveiled his scheme for dividing Commission portfolios among the commissioners named by the other 24 EU member-states (other than his own Portugal, that is). Not only did he do this a full two weeks before the deadline he himself had promised for presenting his portfolio distribution, by most accounts he did a rather good job with his decisions of whom to put where. As the Financial Times Deutschland put it, he rather skillfully reconciled the different goals of “fulfilling a wish for everyone, yet remaining the chief at the center, all while forming a competent team.”

German Bundeskanzler Gerhard Schröder (currently visiting Romania, among other reasons to visit for the first time the grave of his father, killed there in the Second World War), for one, is happy with what Barroso has come up with. This is despite the new Commission President’s evident shunting aside of pressures by the Union’s bigger countries to name a “supercommissioner” in charge of industry and economic affairs, i.e. one with authority over other commissioners. The Germans particularly thought that that would be appropriate for their own commissioner, Günter Verheugen, but it didn’t happen – or did it? This question constitutes the core of most German press coverage of the new Commission roster. (more…)

It may be getting into vacation season in the EU, but now that a new European Commission President has been agreed upon by the European Council (he’s Portugal’s José Manuel Barroso, of course) the horse-trading and dealing surrounding the question of just who will be on the new Commission (which takes office November 1) is starting in earnest. The leading Czech business newspaper, Hospodárské noviny covers the action (The Battle Begins Over the Composition of the European Commission), and notes that this time the issue is complicated by the fact that, with this transition, the Commission will go from a system where the five biggest lands get two commissioners and everyone else one (so that there have been thirty of these since the enlargement in May) to a system where every country gets one (thus there are twenty-five in total.) (more…)

We recently reviewed German commentary on how the Dutch economy is going to the dogs. Fair is fair: An analysis of current German economic problems from the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende (The Titanic or Germany) goes far to suggest that German comments about the failure of the Dutch “polder model” were an instance of the fabled pot calling the kettle black. (Now, to keep the chain going, I need to find some on-line article – maybe from the French press? – revealing current Danish economic problems.) (more…)