WHY THE SELECTION OF AN EU PRESIDENT ISN'T WHAT IT SEEMS

Marjorie Smith

           The EU's new President (as constituted under the Lisbon treaty) is due to be selected in Brussels  Thursday evening or more likely Friday morning. What will be a far less powerful position than many imagine, will be the subject of intense horse-trading and brinkmanship by the 27 Member States.

           Whoever becomes EU President will find themselves in an institutional position more akin to the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, a constitutional position more akin to the President of Germany or Ireland and in a ceremonial position more akin to the Secretary-General of the UN. In other words and in many respects, a sheep in wolf's clothing.

           Like any multilateral international negotiations, the process is complicated whenever there is either no clear candidate or that the selection process is semi-informal and unstructured. Both apply in this case. Calls for the President to be elected abound at the present time, yet for many, such a course of action would undermine the very purpose of the EU.

           This is because many people seem to fundamentally misunderstand how the EU President will be selected and why having a direct election would be problematic.

            The accusations in the right-wing press are flying thick and fast: Just like the Soviet Union! Decisions made behind closed doors! Typically secretive! Anti-democratic! Etc. Etc. These are just some of the ignorant headlines being bandied about by many and not just by eurosceptics.

            The basic premise to remember is that the EU is a club of 27 members, it's as simple as that. The members are the individual Member States, The commission is the staff and the European Parliament is the management committee.

            It's up to the 27 who they appoint and if there isn't going to be consensus, then a democratic vote will be taken amongst the 27. The vote will be by Qualified Majority Vote (QMV) with the larger Member States having a bigger weighting roughly according to population size. Seems eminently democratic to me.

            For those, who claim it is anti-democratic, what exact element of democracy would they like to see? If the President of the EU, as constituted according to the Lisbon Treaty was to be directly elected, then he/she would receive a democratic mandate that would serve as a competing centre of power to the Member States. It would also serve as a competing power to the directly elected European Parliament.

            Eurosceptics would end up with a new powerful trans-national European institution with a direct fully democratic legitimacy that would not be dependent on any Member State for their power base. Is that what they want when they accuse the present system of being anti-democratic? Of course not, they just want a stick to beat the EU with and any stick will do.

            The other main criticism is that nobody knows who is standing, just that the post should be filled by a person who preferably currently holds high political office or has done so recently. Since this is a new post, there is no recognised system of choosing a President, hence people currently treading warily. Secondly, it's inevitable that current Prime Ministers have not formally applied for the position, because it would be political suicide at home, if their names where formally put forward and they didn't win.

           The actual position is far less powerful, or influential, than many suppose. Unlike in France or the USA, the role of EU President will be one of coordination, representation and chairing not one of leadership, policy formulation and carrying out a democratic mandate for change. The position of EU Foreign Minister is a much more influential role and being an institutional hybrid, has far more scope to be a player.

            If those who criticise the process have constructive alternatives to what is currently happening would like to make their suggestions known that would be most welcome. But, as ever, those who are most vociferous about the EU are usually the most ignorant about it as well.

EU STILL AT NOMINATIONS IMPASSE AHEAD OF THURSDAY SUMMIT

A summit this week to appoint an EU president and foreign affairs chief looks set to run over schedule with no clear candidates agreed despite long consultations, EU officials said on Tuesday.

Sweden has called a summit in Brussels on Thursday to decide who fills the jobs. But midway through a second round of discussions with EU leaders, no unanimous names have emerged. Herman Van Rompuy is the frontrunner to become president, but diplomats say no agreement has been reached on the foreign policy job and some countries want a more established statesmen than Van Rompuy as president. "There is still no clear candidate for either job," an EU diplomat with knowledge of the negotiations said.

Fredrik Reinfeldt had hoped unanimous candidates for both jobs would emerge from talks with leaders and would be confirmed at a dinner. The summit now looks likely to run into the early hours of Friday and beyond.

FRIDAY BREAKFAST ORDERED  

Sweden has even taken the precaution of ordering breakfast for the heads of state and government attending the summit in case the dinner ends without a result, diplomats say. "If there is no agreement -and currently many things seem to be blocked- then it must continue on Friday or probably it will have to be postponed," Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger told reporters on Monday.

At least six names have repeatedly been mentioned by diplomats and analysts for the president's job, and a similar number for the role of high representative, but the list seems to grow rather than shorten. The EU is expected to opt for a centre-right president and a centre-left foreign affairs chief. There is no firm favourite for the latter role, but Italians Massimo D'Alema and Giuliano Amato are increasingly mentioned as candidates. Despite calls for a women to have one of the top jobs, no women are thought to be among the front-runners.

BRITAIN FACES BEING SIDELINED

 EU diplomats say Britain is still pushing for Tony Blair to be president but many other states are against. Britain's insistence on Blair is creating an impasse, the diplomat familiar with the process said, and Britain could find itself sidelined if the decision ultimately went to a vote. "Any decision without the UK's backing would not be good PR for the EU, but the Swedes, France, Germany and others may be willing to go for a vote without the British," he said.

Why Alan Johnson is skating on thin ice

Marjorie Smith

Alan Johnson's justification for sacking Professor Nutt over his refusal to acquiesce with the Government's decision to reclassify cannabis from C to B under the Misuse of Drugs Act is spurious in the extreme.

The main reason that the Labour leadership seems to struggles over this issue is that there is a streak of Christian Socilalist thinking (Straw, Brown, Blair et al) that seems to rely more on the advice of the Association of Chief Police Officers rather than those more well-versed in what is actually happening on the streets. It is an ethos that top-down policy making based on moral certainties are appropriate for how society should govern itself.

The Government seem intent to keep on digging a gigantic hole over this issue and continues to flip flop like a startled fish in a Japanese sushi bar.

It was David Blunkett who declassified cannabis as a Class B to Class C in 2002. Taken on the advice of experts this seemed at the time a reasonable step, only opposed by the indignanti of the Mail and Telegraph brigade. This was shortly followed by the virtual de-criminalisation of canabis in Brixton, implicitly indulged by the Home Office who wanted to test public opinion on attitudes to cannabis.

The forces of reaction made sure that the public furore (mainly confined to the Op-Ed pieces and letters page of the said Mail and Telegraph) was blown-up into a media firestorm that intimidated the Home Secretary and the Home Office to beat a hasty retreat.

Then this was followed by a drip, drip, drip campaign about the dangers of drugs generally and their burgeoning effects on society as a whole. Often juxtaposes with the rare, but still tragic case, of individuals who had adverse reactions to taking drugs. The Government (and especially the Prime Minister) so often in thrall to the Daily Mail eventually caved in to the editorial line of Paul Dacre and performed a policy u-turn.

As Sue Blackmore in the Guradian, so elequently exposed Jacqui Smith's reasoning for reclassifying Cannabis to Class B . "In May 2008 Jacqui Smith announced that she wanted to reverse the decision and put cannabis back to Class B. She said she was concerned about the evidence linking cannabis smoking with schizophrenia, and with the increase in the supply of skunk and other strong forms of the drug.

There was indeed some evidence of a link with schizophrenia but the numbers of people affected are tiny, the risk small, and the reason for the correlation unknown (for example people who are genetically predisposed to schizophrenia may be more likely to smoke cannabis or to find it helpful). Some research even suggests that there is no link and that people diagnosed with "cannabis-induced psychosis" would have developed the symptoms anyway but blamed the drug. And interestingly, since the 1950s there has been a huge increase in cannabis smoking with no change in the rate of schizophrenia."

The other main reason for reclassification was that the stregth of skunk on the street had dramatically increased over the years and that the level of active ingridient (THC) in street level skunk was much higher than 30 years ago.

This simple claim by the Home Secretary reveals the absolute paucity of rationality behing the decision. The reason why skunk is so uchmore popular than it was is precisely because it is stronger and crucially it is widely available due to widespread expert cultivation in the UK. In other words the skunk (then more widely know simply as grass) of 20-3o years ago was widely dislike because of its poor quality, it was viewed as the smoke of last resort.

The valid comparison should have been made between today's skunk and yesterdfay's hashish, such as Red Lebanese, Moroccan Gold etc etc that came in a block and was and probably still is stronger than today's street-level skunk. If you compare apples with oranges you get bizarre results.

Labours rush to heavily increase the criminalisation of today's youth reveals a nasty anti-libertarian streak within the current Government that does society no favours and does young people especially, no favours.

The Tories and their torturious position on the Lisbon Treaty

By Marjorie Smith

So, drunken text messages in a highly pretentious manner begin to reveal the true extent of the hidden division over Europe in the Conservative party.

Having made an incoherent speech at the Tory Party Conference in Manchester, in which he undermined Cameron's deliberately opaque position on the Lisbon treaty by calling for a referendum when (IF) the Tories get elected to Government, Boris Johnson then scuttles back to London.

Having returned from the conference in Manchester on October 5, Mr Johnson then received the pretentious threat by text in Italian , “La vendetta è un piatto che va mangiato freddo”, by text message in the early hours of Tuesday. It translates as: “Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.”

Nick Boles from the Cameron Clique admits sending the text, which is indicative of the tantrum Cameron would have thrown following Johnson's speech to the Conference. Make no mistake Johnson's position is much closer to the vast majority of his party over Europe than Cameron's is. Cameron knows this and behind his 'nice guy' image is a man who acts like a spoilt brat when he can't get his own way. He will have certainly have been stamping his feet in a fit of pique following Johnson's intervention.

The Conservative party has become a much more eurosceptic party than it ever was under Thatcher or Major and euroscepticism is now one of the few ideological poles (besides an abiding belief in the reforming power of the market) that is shared by 90%+ of the party. Cameron has spent a lot of political capital both collaborating with the eurosceptics (hence leaving the sane centre-right bloc in the European parliament) and also talking about the EU in order to keep his rabid right quiet in the UK.

However, what would really stoke up a civil war in the Tory party , in which the Cameron Clique could not contain the outpouring of vitriol would be if Tony Blair was to be appointed as EU President.

Whatever the rights or wrongs about Blair being appointed rto this position form a left perspective, it would be worth it to watch the Tory party tear itself apart over Europe and Blair's appointment would be incendiary.

Cameron would not be able to hold the line of having an aggresssively pragmatic attitude to the EU and consequently, the Tories important first year in Government would be completely overshadowed by their usual compulsive /obsessive fascination with the EU.