As Voltaire put it in Candide, “Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles” (all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds). That Chris Patten may not be able to repeat those words without inflicting torture on the French language partly explains why he is unlikely to be the next President of the European Commission.
It cannot be said, though, that when the 25 EU leaders soon select a new president they will be operating in the best of all possible worlds. The more plausible contenders for this post, such as Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish Prime Minister, or Bertie Ahern, his Irish counterpart, are reluctant to be recruited. The supposed shortlist thus consists, with one exception, of the anonymous, the bland and those so bland that it is better that they remain anonymous.
This is very unfortunate. The position of president is not merely symbolic. An able incumbent can impose a strategy on the Brussels bureaucracy. Jacques Delors, whatever one might think of his flawed federalist agenda, achieved a great deal in his own terms. A feeble president, of which the EU has had too many, will fail to take on an official culture that is, to quote Voltaire again, “divisés d’intérêts, et pour le crime unis” (divided by interests and united by crime). In the worst of all possible worlds, the Commission finds itself stuck with a figure such as Romano Prodi who can neither get a grip on the Brussels machine nor keep his hands off domestic politics. EU leaders must ensure that this mistake is not repeated.
In a genuine best of all worlds, an appointment would have already been made by acclamation. José María Aznar, then Spanish Prime Minister, was widely regarded some 18 months ago as the obvious candidate. He had and has precisely the blend of proven competence, relevant experience and sound temperament demanded for this difficult assignment. Once he bravely decided to back the Anglo-American intervention in Iraq, however, his virtues suddenly counted for nothing. France and Germany made it plain that he would be blackballed. The sad end to his final days in office, overshadowed by first the March 11 bombings and then the undeserved defeat of his Popular Party, closed off any chance that he might be dragged to Brussels like Cincinnatus from the plough.
In these imperfect circumstances, the EU hierarchy should reach for the second-best Spaniard. Javier Solana, the EU’s foreign policy high representative and former Nato Secretary-General, has the most credible of the names that have been floated. He does not have fingers in Madrid’s political pies, he has run a large organisation, he is neither a nonentity nor an egomaniac and has both a realistic sense of how Europe can develop and a passionate commitment to the transatlantic relationship. He is a more impressive option than the likes of Guy Verhofstadt, the Prime Minister of Belgium (whom Tony Blair has threatened to block), Jean-Claude Junker, Luxembourg’s leader, or Antonio Vittorino, the Portuguese EU Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs.
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That the most powerful argument against Señor Solana’s elevation is that there is no one decent to fill his presumed slot as the EU’s first “foreign minister” (if that role is established) shows the depth of the talent hole in Brussels. It would be best to promote Señor Solana and then pick some unknown individual to serve as the “foreign minister” and hope that he remains unknown for all his tenure. The Commission requires a serious figure with a mandate to end the administrative chaos and sheer scandal that afflicts it. The EU cannot afford to settle on a lowest-common-denominator politician yet again — when in doubt, choose Luxembourg. At a minimum, the 25 leaders should act in the spirit of Voltaire’s personal motto: écrasez l’infâme (wipe out the infamous).