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

8 July 2006

President Barroso’s term of office lasts until 31 October 2009, and he may stand again. Next year, as the EU celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, President Barroso wants its leaders to sign a ‘declaration of intent’. The intellectual crux of his vision — what he calls his ‘silent revolution’ — is that the EU is the best structure within which its members can deal with the buffeting forces of globalisation. First, he claims, only the EU is big enough to pack a punch in the modern world of power blocs; second, Europe is ‘the missing part of the reality’ between the national and the global, the supposedly indispensable intermediary; third, he and his fellow commissioners can concentrate all their time on defending collective European interests.

‘It is not because we have any sort of superiority, but because we have more time. A prime minister devotes maybe 90 per cent of his time to internal politics, 10 per cent to European politics or international ones. It depends of course, but the Commission devotes 100 per cent of its time to Europe; that’s our job, and that is why the Commission so often brings the ideas and the solutions and the initiatives that are accepted by the member states.’

Well, not always Mr President, actually. Does he not accept that the referendums of 2005 were a wake-up call, that he and his fellow commissioners have failed conspicuously to persuade the peoples of Europe — including the British — that the EU is indeed the best institution within which to face the challenge of the 21st-century world?

‘That’s why I am giving this interview. I have been to Britain several times to explain that Europe now can be a great tool for globalisation. On trade negotiations, this is obvious, the British agenda which is generally speaking for opening markets. There is a much better chance of getting that if Britain appears as a loyal member of the club, active at the centre of the club, than as a kind of reluctant member. It’s true of any group, if you are a reluctant member, people do not trust you. If you are an active member of the club, come in with solutions, your influence is increased.’

Ah, such a clubbable fellow, this Bazza. Charming, brilliant and good company. You leave his presence feeling that if anyone could make this project appealing, it is this man; and that his failure to do so says more about the project than it does about him.

Matthew d’Ancona is editor of The Spectator. David Rennie is contributing editor to The Spectator and Europe correspondent of the Daily Telegraph.