‘Don’t come to a beefeating club if you’re vegetarian’

Matthew d'Ancona & David Rennie

05 July 2006

‘I think Gordon Brown will discover, if he becomes prime minister, that the European Council is not like Ecofin,’ Mr Barroso says. ‘Today, what happens is that since Britain is not a member of the euro, in fact it is in the Ecofin that is not — let’s put this politely — as relevant as the euro area, the real decisions are taken in the eurozone.’

The message is unmistakable: once Mr Brown is out of shorts and graduates to big school, he will learn the rules. ‘In the European Council, he will take the real decisions for Europe, and so it is obvious that — I don’t want to personalise this — any British leader wants to defend the interests of his country.’

Earlier this year Gordon Brown enraged the Commission by suggesting that the effectiveness of competition regulations should be overseen by national capitals. Aghast Eurocrats briefed that Mr Brown was giving Paris and other protectionist capitals the chance to undermine the single market.

The Commission president is dismissive. ‘The question is, do national leaders understand the value added by the European dimension and what they also gain by defending and promoting actively a common European interest? I believe that any intelligent political leader of Britain, coming to the European Council, if he does not yet understand it, will understand it immediately.’

The message is, once again: Gordon just does not get it — yet. But he will do once he hangs around with the grown-ups. One is tempted to say that this says more about Mr Barroso’s ignorance of Mr Brown’s determination and willpower than the likely unfolding of events.

Let us put it another way: Mr Brown simply does not believe that the EU can generate jobs and growth, or that EU federalism is dead, or that Europe can be truly Atlanticist. Sorry, Mr President: Gordon (like the majority of his countrymen) does not buy it.