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| Europe |
| A president of Europe? Continent's unity is tested |
| 2009-11-15 |
| The European Union has battled long and hard for this moment: the imminent choice of its first president. To get there, the EU strong-armed Irish voters, brushed aside hostile French and Dutch ballots, and pressured the Czech president into agreeing to a single leader to give Europe a strong voice on the world stage. Yet after all that, EU leaders meeting Thursday may end up picking someone from a small country with little international power instead of a charismatic heavyweight to head this continental bloc of 27 nations, half a billion people and huge economic heft. To pick a boss they can all live with, they must strike the right balance between big countries and small, east and west, socialists and conservatives, perhaps male and female. They must maneuver between proponents of a strong Europe and those who fear it — eurocentrics and euroskeptics, in the local parlance. It's a diplomatic minefield. |
| Posted by:ed |
| #4 Vaira-Vike Freiberga, the lady of Latvia? Trailing daughter #1 once wrote a tale in which she played a trifling but definitive part for a school assignment. She'd do well for the EU, Mizzou Mafia. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-11-15 23:38 |
| #3 At what point does the EU get only a single UN seat? |
| Posted by: Hellfish 2009-11-15 18:41 |
| #2 I'm on a Facebook group advocating Vaira-Vike Freiberga. Think Thatcher of Eastern Europe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaira_V%C4%AB%C4%B7e-Freiberga Not that she has a tinker's damn of a chance. It'll be the Brussel sprout who I've never even heard of until now. |
| Posted by: Mizzou Mafia 2009-11-15 15:51 |
| #1 The EUroweenies will pick a weenie. And he will look and act like a Weenie. Say Quack. |
| Posted by: Angleton9 2009-11-15 09:20 |