Wednesday, 16th September 2009
Barroso gets another term as Commission President
Joes Manuel Barroso secured another five years in the political hot seat as President of the European Commission, following a tight vote in Strasbourg. The Socialists, Greens, Lib-Dems and other assorted lefties were opposed to Barroso and keen to find a candidate of their own for the top EU post, despite the fact that Barroso had already secured the support of all 27 Member States in the Council of Ministers.
In an effort to derail Barroso's re-election, the left tried to postpone a decision on the next Commission President until the October plenary session in Strasbourg, hoping that by then they would find a candidate with appropriate socialist credentials. But on the opening night of this Strasbourg session we voted them down, rejecting their attempt to postpone the election.
Strenuous efforts were then made by the left to rally support against Barroso during a vote in which the MEPs could either accept or reject him as the next Commission President. In the electronic vote that followed, half of the socialists abstained, while the other half voted against Barroso. The Greens, including Scotland's two SNP Euro MPs all voted against and, as usual, the Lib Dems were both for and against simultaneously, unsure of which way to go! It was the centre right who saved the day!
Jose Manuel Barroso was re-elected with 382 MEPs voting in favour of his nomination, 219 against and 117 abstentions. The Leader of the Socialists, German MEP Martin Schulz, described the Portuguese Conservative Jose Manuel Barroso bitterly as "the weakest in the history of the European Commission."
It was quickly apparent that the new European Conservatives and Reformists Group, with its 54 MEPs, including the UK's 28 Tory MEPs, had made all the difference. Barroso had only narrowly secured victory with a majority of 46 over all the abstentions and votes against. Together with our former colleagues in the centre-right EPP-ED Group, we had defeated the left and upheld the wishes of Europe's citizens who gave the centre right parties a powerful victory in the June Euro elections.
An angry Schulz sat and scowled as the result of Barroso's election was announced. Meanwhile the leader of the Greens, Daniel Cohn Bendit (Danny the Red of fond memory!) rushed forward to shake Barroso's hand and present him with a gift, in a sickening and transparent attempt to hide the fact that he and his group had just voted against Barroso's re-election. The Lib-Dems followed suit, flamboyantly handing a huge bouquet of flowers to Jose Manuel Barroso, which they had kept concealed beneath their desks in the chamber while half of them voted against his re-election!
I really hope that Barroso will learn some lessons from this circus, the main one being that he owes the socialists nothing. Europe voted against the socialists in June and the socialists votes against Barroso in Strasbourg, so he owes them no loyalty and their demands for more social legislation, more regulation, more bureaucracy and more red-tape, should be confined to Strasbourg's voluminous dustbins.
