Blair Kicks Off Campaign to Become EU President

The Observer, London

Tony Blair launched his campaign to become the first fully-fledged President of the European Union yesterday by describing the notion of left- and right-wing politics as redundant.

With France preparing to oversee the appointment process, Blair set out his vision of modern European democracy at a meeting of the French governing conservative party by also claiming that EU countries could achieve far more by working together than acting in isolation.

'Europe is not a question of left or right, but a question of the future or the past, of strength or weakness,' said the former British Prime Minister, speaking in French.

In his most important speech since leaving Downing Street last June, addressing 2,000 supporters of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Blair said globalisation was eradicating traditional party lines and class distinctions and rendering old political remedies obsolete. 'It's about today versus yesterday. Less about politics and more about a state of mind; open as opposed to closed,' he said.

'Terrorism, security, immigration, organised crime, energy, the environment, science, biotechnology and higher education. In all these areas, and others, we are much stronger and able to deliver what our citizens expect from us as individual nations if we are part of a strong and united Europe,' he added before supporters of Sarkozy's Union Pour Un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) party. Blair, a close ally of Sarkozy who advised the French politician during his rise to power, is strongly backed by the French President to become President of the EU Council of Ministers in January next year, a position he has previously said he was not interested in.

Sarkozy, 52, who appeared at the Palais des Sports rally without his 40-year-old girlfriend, Carla Bruni, offered unequivocal backing for Blair yesterday, describing him as an ideal candidate to run Europe. 'He is intelligent, he is brave and he is a friend. We need him in Europe. How can we govern a continent of 450 million people if the President changes every six months and has to run his own country at the same time? I want a President chosen from the top - not a compromise candidate - who will serve for two-and-a-half years,' added Sarkozy.

A UMP party grandee, Jean-Pierre Rafarin, wrote in yesterday's Le Monde newspaper that Blair's experience in Europe positioned him well for the post. The position of President of the European Council - which meets at head-of-state and government level, usually four times a year - is due to be created by the 27-nation grouping in the second half of 2008, when France will chair EU ministerial meetings.

At the end of this month, Blair will continue his campaign to win the leadership of Europe when he addresses a conference at the Sorbonne of Les Progressistes, a breakaway socialist party group which has joined Sarkozy's government. Blair is also due to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this month.

After Blair's speech, Sarkozy took the former Prime Minister for lunch at the Hotel Bristol near the Elysee Palace. Despite support from Sarkozy - who is the architect of the mini-treaty for a European constitution - Blair is an outsider for the EU job.

His support for the war in Iraq and Britain's reluctance to join the euro and other core projects is likely to count against him when EU leaders vote for their president later this year.

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Edouard Balladur: US of EU

The First Post

For the first time in several hundred years the West is on the losing side of history. This is the thesis of Edouard Balladur, the former French Prime Minister who in a recent essay argues that "history is starting to be made without the West and perhaps one day it will be made against it".

The 78-year-old statesman believes that Western values are so threatened that the only way to defend global democracy and the rule of law is for the US and the EU to consider a real political, economic and cultural union.

Like many he fears that the West is in cultural decline and unable to face the challenges that confront it. America and Europe, economically stagnant and unable to innovate and prosper in the face of Chinese and Indian economic success, face new shared dangers in Islamic fundamentalism, and the rise of hostile independent states such as Iran and Russia.

For Balladur, the West must undergo a revolution in thinking and come together and defend its common values in the face of unprecedented global threats.

This is more than the delightful delusions of an aloof French aristocrat. These ideas are taken seriously at the highest level. Nicolas Sarkozy is certainly listening: the current President of France, a close confidante and political ally of Balladur, is intrigued by the prospect of a renewed Western project with France at its centre.

Moreover, the British elite have long been seduced by the idea of a transatlantic free-trade pact. While Angela Merkel, the German PM, wants to extend the traditional trans-Atlantic military alliance into new cultural and economic agreements based around common values and beliefs.

Looking at it objectively, Balladur expresses unmistakable geo-political truths. The age of Western dominance is clearly over. America may still be a superpower but within a generation it will be equalled by other nations both economically and militarily. Similarly Europe may delight in its own expansion, but national governments and shallow self-interest still call the tune. As such, Europe's soft power is never really taken seriously by its adversaries: Russia, for instance, derides the EU and sidelines it diplomatically and economically.

Thus the reasoning goes that Europe needs the hard power of American military might. Moreover, America now recognises its limits; it knows it can no longer risk unilateral military action. The US needs the soft power of persuasion and the many friends that the EU represents.

And there I think this little daydream should end. There is no real chance of a Western Union because an alliance implies an equality of partners. The Europeans may well be prepared to pool sovereignty in the name of common values - but the Americans certainly aren't.

America, despite its vision and idealism, remains a deeply nationalist and supremacist nation - and such countries do not and cannot form a union of equals. The only real alliance the US has is with Britain and Israel. Because the former is painfully subservient and the latter utterly dependent, neither offers a model for a common Western future.

That said, there is a real common Western heritage that is worth defending - one that upholds the idea of the dignity of the person and the belief that power and wealth are not the ultimate values. This is the legacy of Plato and Aristotle, the Jewish prophets, Christianity and the Renaissance. It lies also in the enlightenment's refusal of absolute authority and the struggle by ordinary people to shape their lives and gain a just share of wealth and happiness.

However, these great Western achievements were attained by a high civilisation - whereas Europe and America are now at a cultural low, obsessed with consumerism and celebrity.

If Sarkozy can help revive a high European culture, and a new American President can restore a genuinely liberating American vision, then there might, just might, be a union of the West worth pursuing after all.

*
Chirac criticized Balladur as representing "dominant ideas" and the difference between the two decreased quickly. Left behind by the Socialist Lionel Jospin and Jacques Chirac, Balladur obtained 18.5% and was eliminated in the first round.

Despite Chirac declaring that they had been "friends for 30 years", the episode greatly strained their relationship. The Balladuriens, i.e. Balladur's followers, such as Nicolas Sarkozy, were ostracized from the new Chirac administration.