Kohl and Mitterrand at Verdun

It seems it’s the season for high level German politicians of yesteryear to have a go at the EU. Former Bundeskanzler Schmidt is quoted by Euractiv.de (Google translation here) as saying:

Es ist im Augenblick keine Führungsperson da. Das ist eine schlimmere Situation, als wir sie jemals in 60 Jahren der europäischen Integration erlebt haben.

The gist is that at the moment there is no leading person there (in the EU), and that it’s a worse situation that we have seen in 60 years of European integration. Schmidt also goes on to have a rant at the whole enlargement of the EU.

Former foreign minister Joschka Fischer also has a go (as covered by Kosmopolit, Google translation here), although his focus is more on how he sees Germany as a brake on European integration at the moment, different to Germany’s traditional role as a motor for integration.

Broadly I agree with the statements of Schmidt and Fischer. But why is it so? It’s all very well for them to decry the demise of EU leadership, but what are we going to do in the future to address the situation while Fischer and Schmidt enjoy their pensions.

In the end leadership at European level emerges when there is visionary, determined and long term leadership at national level in the Member States. When leaders behave states(wo)men, realising something needs to be sacrificed nationally for the sake of the future of the continent. Leaders who see the national interest and the European interest as being one and the same thing, and do not hesitate to communicate as such.

The problem is that in the era of 24/7 news, the internet, fracturing party political systems, demographic issues, decreasing election turnout and decreasing trust for elected politicians how can such leaders emerge? Would people like Genscher, Kohl, Mitterand, Palme even become leaders of their respective parties in the political environment we face today?

Can you imagine Merkel and Sarkozy holding hands at Verdun? Probably not.

It strikes me that party politics is in a dangerous predicament in many EU Member States, with prevalent poor quality leadership, and short-termist populism as a result of thinking about short term strategic advantage rather than longer term thinking.

So that’s the start of answering why. Then comes the much harder question what do we do about it?

Look Lucy and anyone else trying to defend that line in public – it’s a load of crap. Labour is not united behind Brown. It’s not united behind anyone as an alternative to Brown either. People might not be behind Hoon and Hewitt (and especially not their timing), but there’s scarcely any Labour person I know that doesn’t have some sort of misgivings about Brown’s leadership. There’s no way to gloss over that. To do so is futile. But, conversely, what I write does not necessarily mean that Brown is not the best person to lead Labour into the election.

That leads me to the conclusion that I am not especially bothered about whether Brown is now ousted or not, and I say this as someone who joined Labour at the age of 16 and still carries the card. If Brown is ousted then a new leader will have too little time to change things much. If Brown stays then Labour will potter ahead towards an election with a wounded leader. Either option is rather sub-optimal.

All I want is some sort of quick decision, some clear line about what is going to happen. No rumbling news stories for days on end. This must be the very last effort to deal with the leadership question before the election. And after that – with a bit of luck – some sort of pragmatic, policy based approach that activists can use in the run up to the election can be developed. Remember the Tories will outspend Labour 3-1.

MPs in the corridors of Westminster: please think of the country, please avoid the crass soundbites about unity, and – above all – do not dither, whatever way the decision goes.