Some interesting links

I took part in this week's Record Europe in which we discuss the relationship between sport and the European law. You can catch in on the BBC Parliament's channel or watch it on the internet here. The debate starts just under five minutes into the programme.

Another link well worth taking a look at is Nosemonkey's EUtopia post on the media and why he thinks that he was shortlisted for UACES-Reuters Reporting Europe Award for his blog on the EU. Far from being chuffed with being up for the award Nosemonkey worries he was shortlisted because of the distinct lack of any journalism from the major papers on the EU. It's a thoughtful piece that all too easily highlights the UK media's weakness of reporting the EU and the ignorence this then leads to.

Two other bloggers, Jon Worth and Jan Seifert, have set up a website which is campaigning for just one president of the EU, called Who Do I Call, in tribute to Henry Kissinger's infamous question "Who do I call if I want to call Europe?". It's online at www.whodoicall.eu and argues that appointing the same person to be President of the Commission and President of the European Council would offer greater democracy and efficiency while obviously offering one clear figurehead of the EU to the rest of the world.

Who will be President?

On Tuesday the Independent dedicated a page to the issue of the future President of the European Council, who is favourite for the job and what exactly they will have to do, should the treaty be ratified.

Tony Blair has of course been touted for the job, and is supposedly being backed for the role by Sarkozy, but I think it remains a bit of a longshot. First, would Blair be popular enough to win support Europe wide and second, would he want to do a job which involves, as the John Lichfield explains, "not an enormous amount"?

The job is not President of the EU, but simply the chairmanship of just one of its institutions - the one that only meets four times a year, namely the European Council of heads of government of the Member States. The job has no independent executive powers or own administration. The EU's executive remains the Commission, whose President will be elected by the European Parliament.

Indeed, the relationship between these two Presidents could be problematic if the European Council President has too high ambitions and seeks to develop the role beyond its original conception of preparing and managing the "summit" meetings. It may also be confusing for the wider public if Europe has two "presidents" with an ill-defined division of responsibilities.

Some have suggested that the two posts should be merged or at least given to the same person. This is unlikely in the immediate, but I have a solution: the current Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen is interested in being President of the European Council. His predecessor, Paul Nyrup Rasmussen, now leader of the Party of European Socialists, has been tipped as a suitable President of the Commission. Appoint both - then, for public opinion, the "President of Europe" would be a Dane called Rasmussen. He might look different from one photo to another, but what the heck, you age quickly in this job....