EU in east-west power struggle over who should become foreign policy chief

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/eu-east-west-power-struggle-foreign-policy-chief

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The long arm of the Kremlin extended into the very centre of European politics on Wednesday as the EU became embroiled in an east-west power struggle over who should become the new face of the union's foreign policy.

The fight over one of Europe's top jobs, which focused on the Italian foreign minister, Federica Mogherini, reflected the impact on EU decision-taking of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his campaign to annex parts of Ukraine and destabilise the rest of the country.

Mogherini was the frontrunner at an EU summit in Brussels to be named as the successor to Catherine Ashton as the EU's foreign policy chief. But she ran into strong opposition as she is regarded as overly pro-Russian in the Ukraine crisis.

Poland and the three Baltic states, strongly on the Ukrainian side in the confrontation with Moscow, were strongly opposed to the Italian, who last week made Russia her first stop during Italy's current rotating presidency of the EU.

Wednesday's summit was called especially to thrash out the appointment of several new leaders at the top of the EU for the next five years, following the European elections in May and the confirmation on Tuesday of Jean-Claude Juncker as the new chief of the EU executive in Brussels.

Juncker attended the summit to discuss the make-up of the new European commission and to try to match national nominees for commission posts with the various portfolios.

The summit also sought to name Ashton's replacement as well as the replacement for Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European council who chairs and mediates the summitry.

In a strong sign of the power struggle behind the scenes, the summit dinner was delayed by 90 minutes shortly before it was due to start, while Italy's prime minister, Matteo Renzi, strongly committed to Mogherini, cancelled a scheduled pre-summit meeting with EU social democratic heads of government and arrived late.

A failure to push Mogherini into the post will mark a serious blow to Renzi's prestige. The Italian is the rising star of the centre-left in Europe, challenging the pre-eminence in Europe of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, on the centre-right. He was the big winner of the European elections, with his Democratic party taking 41% of the vote in Italy and making his party the biggest national contingent on the centre-left in the European parliament.

Previously an aide to the prime minister, Mogherini, 41, two years older than Renzi, has been foreign minister for only a few months. Juncker appeared to come out against her on Tuesday, telling the parliament that Europe needed experience in its foreign policy chief.

In a sign that few of the key decisions had been taken, there were surprisingly few reliable leaks in Brussels on who would get what and various permutations circulated of the possible, since the trio of leading posts have to reconcile conflicting criteria – male-female, centre-right/centre-left, east-west and small countries versus big countries.

One version had Mogherini netting the Italian commission nomination, but not securing the foreign policy post. That could go to the centre-left prime minister of Denmark, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who was also a contender for the council presidency.

France has objected to her in the presidency job because Denmark is not a euro single currency country. Euro membership has no bearing on the foreign policy post.

Amid countless pairings being mentioned for the top duo of council president and foreign policy chief, Donald Tusk, the centre-right prime minister of Poland, made a last-minute appearance on Wednesday as a tip for the presidency, along with Mogherini in the other post.

Mogherini was pictured in the Middle East on Wednesday with top Israeli and Palestinian officials, apparently burnishing her foreign policy credentials.

Last week she went to Moscow and was pictured shaking hands with Putin. She also raised eyebrows by inviting the Russian leader to an economics summit in Milan in October. Former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, was a personal friend of Putin's. Italy depends on Russia for energy supplies and is a strong supporter of the Gazprom-led consortium behind the South Stream pipeline project in southern Europe aimed at supplying Russian gas to Europe while bypassing Ukraine. The project is opposed by Brussels. Earlier this week, Renzi's EU adviser, Sandro Gozi, was tweeting in the Russian language on the merits of South Stream.

Amid strong divisions over the top jobs, Andrus Ansip, prime minister of Estonia until earlier this year and a liberal, was also being tipped to replace Van Rompuy. That would mean a female social democrat would get the foreign policy job, either Mogherini or Thorning-Schmidt.