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Interesting Times
There's a Chinese curse which says, "May he live in interesting times". For better or for worse we live in interesting times in Brussels: the musical chairs’ game for the Commissioner posts is at its height, European leaders continue their wheeling and dealing over the future EU priorities, and party leaders make backroom deals to form political groups and gain influential Committee posts in the Parliament.
Strategic agenda
The key event of the week is without doubt the European Council. More fascinating than the question on whether Juncker will be validated as Commission president (spoiler alert: yes, he probably will) are the EU’s strategic priorities which the Council is to endorse. The MHP Brussels team is following with interest the debate on exactly how much flexibility there will be on the EU's fiscal rules of the Stability and Growth Pact. What level will Angela Merkel be willing to accept to please Italy and France and her coalition partner in Germany? The changes we have seen from one draft version to the other of Herman Van Rompuy’s strategic agenda document indicate that it might become a heated debate.
Parliamentary deals
After the German Vice-Chancellor’s announcement last week on Martin Schulz, this week’s deal by the centre-right and centre-left groups to split the Presidency of the new European Parliament does not come as a surprise. They have agreed that, for the first two and a half years, the Parliament should be presided by the Socialists & Democrats (probably Schulz himself, who, as you will remember, has previously fought hard to avoid “backroom deals”) followed by two and a half years of European People’s Party presidency. The bigger news was the assignment of Parliament Committee chairs and vice-chairs: although the Economic affairs Committee going to the Socialists and Democrats (probably the Italian Roberto Gualtieri) may have been anticipated, the fact that the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR, where the British conservatives sit) will chair the all-important Internal Market Committee is a bit of a happening.
Eurosceptic winners and losers
At the beginning of this week it seemed as if everyone from the cab drivers on Place du Luxembourg to the bureaucrats in the Institutions were, paradoxically, talking mostly about a non-event: the French Front National’s failure to form a political group in the European Parliament. However, many observers believe that leader Marine Le Pen may be able to form a group later this year thanks to individual defectors, possibly from the ECR and from Nigel Farage’s Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD, a “D” for direct has been added to the old name).
Polish drama
As if things were not exciting enough in the last couple of weeks, tapes were also leaked of secretly recorded conversations involving Poland’s foreign minister Radoslav Sikorski, who was one of the favourites to succeed Lady Catherine Ashton as the EU’s foreign policy chief. His critical comments about the UK and the US may make it difficult for him to bag the post. Odds are looking better for Italy’s foreign minister Federica Mogherini to succeed Ashton: most notably she is supported by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, the new shooting star of Europe’s left.