Take me to your Leader!? : Who will be the presidents of the EU?!

national | eu | opinion/analysis

Wednesday September 09, 2009 17:22

by ludopath

On the 21st of March, 1953 a cartoon appeared inthe "New Yorker" by the Scottish cartoonist Ale Graham which showed one UFO, one horse in a field, two extra-terrestials with the caption take me to your leader . The rest is history. In the list of possibly apocryphal quotations of Henry Kissenger (history has been rewritten since he started out) is included the question who do I call for Europe

It is quite mind numbingly appalling for me as an Irish migrant to Europe to read not bit of coverage of the Isbon Treaty which doesn't not include comment on who are the candidates to take the Big Job of Permanent President of the European Council

it will have them green with Envy this new big jobbie.

The only sustained reference to the job in Irish Media came along with the either myopic or trully ominous catch phrase "first EU president". As if there would never be another chance for promotion. Ireland was enthralled by Bertie Ahern's hints that before Mahon and losing Lisbon he would as the hand at the tiller through EU Expansion stand some odds for the job. The then prime minister of Denmark was of course favourite with the bookies at that turn in the long race for

the one and only big new job in the Lisbon Treaty - = - our future uber-president.

The Danish bloke got the top job in NATO so unless he hops throguh the head hunting knowledge economy hoops in time he probably won't be our President for at least one term yet.

Luxembourger Herr Juncker is so familiar to our conversation that his campaign perhaps one of the longset running is still a relative favourite to make the hurdle for the first President or at least a latter term should he still be interested.

The Spanish Gonzales yesterday in a short interview with the Financial Times on video finally put end to sustained speculation that he was in the running for first job. He of course is heading up a Eurothinktank o nthe period 2010 to 2020 at the moment so considering his personal hobby of keeping bonsai trees with his other priorities, he's still in the running.

The darkest horse in the field with ET and their UFO and the sci-fi verbal quote diamond of the 20th century is of course Chancellor Angela Merckel of Germany who as a political leader managed to hold a colation together of the two main parties (one like Labour the other like the Tories) dspite the fact that not even those who voted for either party had been asked before hand did their vote imply a preferance for who would win. Nobody told the Germans they were getting the equivalent of a coaltion of FF with FG and Lab. and the Greens and the PDs of both past and present.

I didn't even touch the name of Tony ________

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Comments (3 of 3)

President Blair

by Good European

Wed Sep 09, 2009 19:32

He's in it to win it

Could the wee langer offspring of a reader walk in the footsteps of Liam Cosgrave as Euro-president?

by ludopath - ( iosaf )

Thu Sep 10, 2009 13:17

I might be wrong, then again, I might be right. Whatever, I do have the feeling that very few voters know how the permanent president of the European Council thing will work out. Like ask yourselves, have you paid as much attention to those in the running or the ridiculously vague description of the job in the Lisbon Treaty?

Like hands up and be honest and shame the devil - how many of us know how long the proposed term of office would be for?

When our own Irish Liam Cosgrave became the first man, woman or son of a prime minister of the Irish Free State to be the first president of the European council - not one person would have found the resources in their begrudgery to squeel out he was only doing a 6 month revolving stint.

So once you've got passed your Tony Blair fixation of 2 and one half years - who would come next?
The same one might repeat, for there is nothing in the Lisbon treaty about limiting their terms. But at some stage due to incontinence, exhaustion or assumption into heaven, a president of the EC will pass on. At best we'd get to see a new one four times a decade. Within thirty years we could have potentially (if all went to plan) seen 7 founding presidents of the EU.

That's like the founding father phase of the USA on steroids. Just to think the Irish government new drug policy recommendations will include surveillance of head shops but not gyms or farms. I digress. Don't we all. Voting Yes to the Lisbon Treaty and getting it out of our in-trays and worries will very truthfully mean an awful lot of hard concentrating to do further into the future. It will hurt. It will boggle the mind. Worse of all it would come with a very bitter taste.

Blair is a candidate for one of those 30 month terms....... he's said nothing to elucidate what he imagines the job entails or responsibilities or relaxding pleasures it might afford or tax him with.

Because just as few can trace the origins of the job, say how much it pays, how it would be awarded, what its responsibilites are, who would gaurd it, who who feed,water & house it -

nobody wants to talk about it.

Luxembourger Juncker is also a candidate for one of those 30 months........ he's only said he reckons the job should mean more than wishing the president of the USA happy birthday (a few times a year). In fact any European prime minister or ex prime minister whose name or face you could expect a panel of news junkie lawyers and school teachers across the continent to recognise
can be on that list.

¿ why aren't you on the list?

If you are an ambitious parent or uncle / aunt to a talented child, what sort of things should you be telling the wee langer so that they get to be Ireland's first permanent Euro-pres? We've had three temporary rotating ones -

*Liam Cosgrave Junior,
*Charles J Haughey Sr,
*Bertie (bartholomew) Ahern

poor auld wikipedia still reckons bertie ahern is in the run as a candidate. It must be the English speaking thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_the_Council_...Union
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_EU_i...ssion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_EU_i...tions

I'm all for Silvio.

by Silvio Fan.

Thu Sep 10, 2009 16:06

"Silvio per Presidente del Europa".

Silvio will liven the place up for sure:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/arti...4.ece

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Take me to your Leader!? : Who will be the presidents of the EU?!

Comments (3 of 3)