Tony Blair 'Superstar' Tony Blair is wrong man for EU president, says Nick Clegg (High Peak Liberal Democrats)

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Tony Blair 'Superstar' Tony Blair is wrong man for EU president, says Nick Clegg

October 28, 2009 12:49 PM
By Patrick Wintour and Nicholas Watt in guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 27 October 2009

Clegg said former Lib Dem leader Lord Ashdown or ex-Tory chief Lord Patten would make better candidates for the new EU job. Photograph: Martin Argles

Tony Blair's chances of becoming the EU president were dealt a blow today when Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, rejected his candidacy and evidence emerged that Germany has been spooked by the scale of the hostility from David Cameron.

Blair did however win the explicit backing of the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, as David Miliband lobbied his EU counterparts for the Blair candidacy.

Further delays in Czech agreement to sign up to the Lisbon treaty, which establishes the new post, means the presidency is unlikely be discussed at the EU summit in Brussels on Thursday. Downing Street said the issue is likely to be settled at a special summit in November.

Cameron and the shadow foreign secretary, William Hague, have been voicing their opposition to Blair's candidacy for three weeks. Today Clegg joined the ranks opposing Blair, saying he had the wrong political skills. "Government by directive, or in his case by sofa, just does not work in the EU," he said.

Clegg's views carry weight because there are seven Liberal prime ministers in the EU and he leads the largest Liberal party in Europe. The Lib Dem leader, who worked in the European commission and was an MEP, said: "Blair really is the wrong person for this job. He won't be very good at it and he will not enjoy it. This job is about giving the EU strength that is the sum of its parts, and it is not importing Hollywood stardust in the hope that a political globetrotting superstar will transform the fortunes of the EU."

Clegg said Miliband had "a profoundly wrong Westminster-based view that what the EU needs is some Westminster machismo and suddenly it will count. That is a profound misunderstanding of what the president of the EU should be".

The Lib Dem leader said he was depressed by the differing approaches of Miliband and Hague. He mocked Miliband "vowing to get Blair in there because he will stop the traffic around the world and William Hague charging around as if he a two-bit actor in the episode of the Sopranos saying if you do that I will threaten you, I will knee-cap you".

Britain should instead expend its diplomatic capital on winning the post of EU high representative for foreign affairs.

He suggested the best UK candidates were either Lord Patten, the former Conservative party chairman, or the former Lib Dem leader Lord Ashdown.

The intervention by Clegg follows signs that a Conservative campaign against Blair is "spooking" EU leaders who are nervous about upsetting Cameron months before the general election.

As Cameron spoke out today against "Il Presidente" Blair, a key pro-European thinktank warned that senior EU leaders were taking careful note of the Tory opposition to Blair.

Charles Grant, the director of the Centre for European Reform, said: "EU governments have been influenced by the Conservative campaign against Blair. They don't want to annoy someone they are going to have to work with in the European Council as a prime minister in the next few years."It is understood that Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is taking careful note of Cameron's opposition. A source familiar with the thinking in Berlin said: "Angela Merkel thinks Tony Blair is probably the best man to be president. But lots of EU governments have been spooked by the strength of the Conservative opposition which is now tilting the balance against Tony Blair."

Cameron mocked Blair as "Il Presidente" and called for a "chairmanic" figure.