THE GUARDIAN – Editorial: Who do you call when you want to call Europe? After five years of wrangling designed to deal with the Henry Kissinger question, the EU last night failed to provide a satisfactory answer. The first ever president of the European council is to be the haiku-writing Belgian prime minister, Herman Van Rompuy, who is still little known in his own country, let alone the wider world. And the continent's pioneering high-representative on foreign policy is the able but unknown Labour baroness, Catherine Ashton, who is as unelected as she is obscure. Neither will stop the traffic even in Brussels, never mind in Beijing. Talk of President Blair has bitten the dust, but so too has any hope of Europe forcing the planet to pay it fresh attention.
That ultimately disappointed hope is what sunk the EU into a prolonged bout of introspection from which it has only just emerged. The 2004 draft constitution was all about creating identifiable leadership, until the people of the Netherlands and France scuppered the plan. But the ambition of providing Europe's half-billion people with a new voice lived on through the Treaty of Lisbon, which limped through near-death in Ireland and eastern resentment to be signed and sealed this month.
At last, the European council could be galvanised by a dynamic leader instead of drifting with an endlessly-rotating chair; and at last Brussels would be able to enter discussion on the Middle East, Africa and the environment with a figure able to look Washington's secretary of state in the eye. Or, at least, that was the theory. But while Tony Blair's divisive and doomed candidacy for the first of these posts created a terrific distraction, Europe quietly returned to its old ways. A Franco-German stitch-up in favour of an obscure Belgian is exactly how things traditionally worked – it is as if the Swedes, the Poles and the rest had never joined the club. There was no puff of white smoke, but the secretive manner in which 27 proud democracies reached the decision made the Vatican look almost transparent. >>> Editorial | Friday, November 20, 2009
THE TELEGRAPH: Herman Van Rompuy: the reluctant leader: Herman Van Rompuy, Belgium's reluctant Prime Minister, is an unexpected first President of the European Union. >>> Bruno Waterfield in Brussels | Thursday, November 19, 2009
THE TELEGRAPH: What will Europe's foreign minister Baroness Ashton do? : Baroness Ashton of Upholland has been appointed high representative for foreign and security policy on Thursday. But what will she actually do? >>> | Friday, November 20, 2009
BBC: Newspapers unite against EU President van Rompuy: There is an unlikely alliance among Friday's papers, with both the Guardian and Daily Mail leading with the same headline, "The Great EU Stitch-Up". >>> | Friday, November 20, 2009
THE SUN: Rompuy romps it: EUROPE'S obscure new President Herman Van Rompuy was celebrating his £320,000-a-year job last night - together with Baroness Ashton, the equally little-known British peer named as EU foreign minister. >>> Graeme Wilson | Friday, November 20, 2009
THE SUN – OPINION: THEY just don't get it.
Europe's two most powerful jobs were handed out yesterday.
But the 500million people who live in the EU were given no say in who got them.
Instead, Europe's elite chose the winners of this shabby lottery.
First in secretive meetings, then over a lavish feast, they thrashed out their sickening stitch-up. It was like the worst days of Soviet Russia.
And it exposed once again how this discredited European empire is rotten to the core. [Source: The Sun] Graeme Wilson | Friday, November 20, 2009
BBC: Baroness Ashton has hit back at claims she does not have enough experience for the post of EU high representative for Foreign Affairs and security.
The Labour peer was the surprise choice of Europe's leaders for the role - dubbed the first EU foreign minister.
Lady Ashton told the BBC that EU leaders were "comfortable" with her appointment - and that she will show she is "the best person for the job". >>> | Friday, November 20, 2009
