The godfather of Europe

21 October 2009

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First the Irish, then the Czechs. José Manuel Barroso is eliminating enemies of the Lisbon Treaty — setting things up for the arrival of President Blair, says Brian M. Carney

At first, the European Union’s critics had high hopes for José Manuel Durão Barroso. If Jacques Delors represented Brussels’s unbridled ambition and Romano Prodi its weakness for buffoonery and bumbling incompetence, then this soft-spoken Portuguese lawyer seemed to bring some modesty to the post of president of the European Commission. His appointment, some fancied, showed the institution was finally come of age. And, just maybe, was scaling back its centralising, federalist ambitions.

How naive that all seems now. Barroso this week stands triumphant, having browbeaten Ireland into reversing its verdict on the Lisbon Treaty earlier this month and last weekend persuading the Czechs that resistance is useless. He has done so not with charm and nuance of argument, but through a mixture of bribery, naked threats and intimidation. As a result, he can claim to rank among the most cunning and effective architects of the EU project. His success, by any standards, has been remarkable.

Consider his tactics in the last few weeks. Asking the Irish to vote again was, in itself, audacious — given there was no other reason than that he did not like their first answer. Then, two weeks before the vote, he announced a E15 million aid package for the Emerald Isle’s jobless — in particular 2,400 sacked Dell workers. Here was a form of politically directed state aid acceptable to the European Commission. The message behind the largesse was clear enough: Big Brother Barroso in Brussels would be nice to Ireland, if Ireland was nice to him.

Importantly, if the Irish didn’t like the nice Mr Barroso, they could opt for the nasty one. The day the aid package was announced, he used an interview in the Irish Times to make it clear that Brussels could also hurt the Republic if it had to. When asked whether Ireland would be driven out of the EU over a second ‘no’ vote, he said that of course it would not. But then, in what was a master-class in the language of the veiled threat: ‘There are some doubts now about the future situation of Ireland. Some people have asked me: is Ireland going to leave the EU? For investor confidence, it is important that there is certainty about the future of Ireland in the EU.’ Not, of course, that Barroso was shameless enough to make baseless threats against Ireland in his own voice. So he attributed the quotes to anonymous others. He assured the Irish, in his best Don Corleone voice, that of course they will not be booted out of the EU if they don’t do the bidding of Brussels. But still, better not to find out, non?

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