Stephen Wall | Jon Worth

Martin Kettle has penned a piece in today’s Guardian entitled “Greece, Schengen, Nato – it’s time to admit the European dream is over“. It’s the latest in a series of pieces that are appearing a lot in the UK press at the moment – whatever the UK’s own headaches about the deficit, cuts etc., we can look on smugly from the side. If the European dream crumbles, well, so be it, because it was never a dream really, was it.

The person who gives Kettle assurance for his contention that the dream is over is Stephen Wall, former UK Permanent Representative and Head of the Cabinet Office European Secretariat. Wall undoubtedly knows a lot about European integration, but I have consistently had problems with his approach, for he gives the impression that the role of citizens in the whole thing are nothing but an annoyance – it’s about the EU being in the UK’s national and, for him, administrative interest. Functionalism. How that in any way is a European ‘dream’ is beyond me.

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As quoted in this piece at EUObserver:

A former British EU ambassador, Stephen Wall, also poured cold water on the scheme, saying that the appointment is about balancing national and political interests in Europe, rather than individual merit.

“Given that they have to placate the right, the left, the north, the south, the large and small nations, you could have a brilliant presentation but, if the politics didn’t fit, what would be the point?” he said in an article in the New York Times on Tuesday.

This is in response to a Polish proposal that candidates for EU top jobs should make presentations to EU leaders.

Let me reply to Stephen’s point. The President of the European Council has no democratic legitimacy at all (appointment is by heads of state and government, no role for the European Parliament), and the High Representative for Foreign Policy is not much better (s/he is part of the Commission team, so needs EP approval at least). But where else, in whatever appointment for a top position does merit not even come into it?

If Wall were still the UK’s permanent representative it might have been right to defend his position behind closed doors. Now, as Vice Chair of Business for New Europe, he has a public relations role and he’s just essentially saying we shouldn’t actually give a shit about whether the person is any good, let’s stick with a diplomats’ stitch up – that’s not acceptable from him. If you’re an advocate for a positive role for the UK in the EU, and for an EU that delivers good policy, you should want a good President of the European Council or High Rep, however unlikely in reality we all know that is going to be.

In short Wall is no person to make any sort of case to citizens about the EU.