EU blames 'Mr Bland' for its lacklustre performance

Jose Manuel Barroso of Portugal has been returned as commission President for a second five-year term. Photo / AP

You are the boss of a powerful executive that proposes legislation and oversees laws affecting the lives of nearly half a billion people.

You have a budget of €138 billion ($345 billion), from farm subsidies and telecommunications to scientific research, culture and women's rights.

A 27-nation summit has just named you, unanimously, to a second five-year term in office. Time for a little respect, right?

Not if you happen to be Jose Manuel Barroso. The President of the European Commission is dismissed by some as a bland pragmatist and by others as an invertebrate opportunist - and his choice is a telling reflection of the state of European politics today.

Barroso, 53, a former Portuguese Premier, was endorsed by all EU leaders last week. But it was to scant enthusiasm, behind-the-scenes shoulder-shrugging and warnings that his appointment could face a hard time getting the backing of the European Parliament.

To conservatives, Barroso is a decent enough chap who won't make waves. To nationalists, he is wallpaper, a nobody unencumbered by visions of a federalist Europe. To socialists and liberals, he flip-flops and curries favour with the big member-states. To European federalists, he has been so fixated on his own survival that he has left Europe leaderless at a time of crisis.

"He's a chameleon," says Green Euro-MP Daniel Cohn-Bendit. "He changes position according to the way the wind is blowing."

And France's former Secretary of State for European Affairs, Jean-Pierre Jouyet, complained: "The commission is now so afraid of member states and is focusing so much on getting itself reappointed that its proposals are way below par."

In 2002 as Portugal's Prime Minister, Barroso's main achievement was to get the country to accept tough macro-economic medicine. In 2004, to widespread surprise, he was endorsed as European Commission President. The force behind this ascension was British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who liked his pro-United States stance and support for the Iraq war.

Barroso was elevated to a consensus candidate over Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium. Verhofstadt was liked by France and Germany because of his pro-European views but was opposed by Britain, Italy, Poland and Spain because of suspicions he would tread on their toes. Barroso kicked off his tenure with a pro-business agenda and support for economic liberalisation and for a low-key commission.

By the end, though, the economic crisis forced him into a 180-degree u-turn: more Government intervention, more social support and more regulations over the financial sector that had caused the catastrophe.

Yet Barroso failed to take the lead in demanding a co-ordinated European response to prime the economy. Instead, he let member-states take the lead, which sometimes led to piecemeal and even rival schemes.

An uninspiring speaker, he has been all but invisible to the European public and failed to make an impression on the world stage. Critics say his drab performance weighed on the failure to secure ratification of the Lisbon Treaty for overhauling the EU's decision-making institutions after the union expanded from 15 to 27 members.

Former French Foreign Minister and Premier Dominique de Villepin says Barroso's flaws help explain why the EU's clout has declined and why indifference and scepticism have taken root among voters. Elections to the European Parliament this month saw a record low turnout that led to startling gains by nationalists.

"We need a commission with a president with energy, who can take the initiative, be the defender of European interests," de Villepin told Le Figaro. "We need to make Europe visible to everyone, to give it a more political, more social, more ecological inspiration, to make it count for more in the world."

The last time Europe had a commission chief of this kind was under Jacques Delors. His presidency, from 1985 to 1995, was a whirlwind in which chunks of national sovereignty flowed to the EU centre and the commission became the emerging voice of Europe. It gained powers to vet cross-border mergers, while EU states swept away internal trade barriers, dismantled internal border controls and forged a single currency, the euro.

Delors was put in office, and his programme was backed to the hilt, thanks to President Francois Mitterrand of France and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

Today, President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chancellor Angela Merkel are far likelier to speak up for national sovereignty than to defend the European project. So a pliable Commission President who will not challenge member states is hardly a surprise, say critics. "Barroso is so weak that he will be rewarded with another term in office," former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer accurately predicted late last year.