As an alumnus of the College of Europe in Bruges I periodically get e-mails on the student e-mail lists. This one has recently reached me:
Dear Alumni,
Following the recent elections for the European Parliament, the nomination of the Commission’s President is now on the European Agenda.
The European Movement (www.europeanmovement.eu) has launched a petition supporting the re-appointment of the President José Manuel Barroso. In this important historical movement, we invite you to visit the petition’s website and to sign it: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/manifesto27
Whatever your feelings are, you are also invited to participate in the debate promoted by the European Movement through the blog www.barroso2.blogspot.com
Best regards,
Fausto Matos
Ana Perdigao
Joao Ribeiro
The problem is that the e-mail is completely false. The European Movement has no view for or against Barroso. I happen to be the webmanager of European Movement and they are not associated with either of those sites. Indeed the blog looks bland and amateurish.
This follows on from the hacking attacks against Anyone But Barroso from Portuguese IP addresses.
So what is the Barroso team up to? Or are supporters of his taking matters into their own hands? Or are people queuing up for jobs in his cabinet or something?
You can alternatively give your opinion on Barroso at eu2009.cz – currently running at 76% against Barroso.
challenge of the day… find anything new in Barroso’s programme:
http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/president/pdf/statement_20090618_en.pdf
Jean Quatremer reports, based on briefing from Sarkozy’s people, that a formal nomination will only be made once the EP indicates when it plans to vote. That almost sounds like a challenge to the EP to use the time to come up with something better. It certainly doesn’t look like unanimous support.
Whether or not the EP decides to vote in July, there’s no reason why a formal nomination couldn’t be made now. There are some good reasons why the Parliament shouldn’t vote in July (aside from the Nice v Lisbon rules question), but those same reasons were disregarded five years ago. On the other hand, delaying the decision on the president leads to less time for the EP to examine the other commissioners designate, or to a fight between Parliament and Council to gain sufficient time for the hearings. If Lisbon’s in force, then the focus will be more on the European Council President and High Rep too, rather than individual Commissioners, so Parliament needs to consider where it wants to apply most pressure in deciding whether to go ahead and vote on Barroso in July or not.
a spoof?? if only…
http://europa.eu/rapid/middayExpressAction.do?date=16/06/2009&direction=0&guiLanguage=en
Is the last comment a spoof? Barroso is to “prevent Europe from entering another era of political uncertainty”..? A contradiction in terms for sure. Barroso has been weak and vacuous – if Europe is to be strong in a crisis then Barroso simply must go.
President Barroso receives a group of young Europeans calling on Council and Parliament to re-appoint him as Commission President
President Barroso will meet today at 16.15 hrs a group of 27 young Europeans (one from each Member State) calling for his re-appointment as President of the next European Commission. In a “manifesto of support to the re-election of the President”, the group called Youth for Europe insists on José Manuel Barroso’s rapid nomination by the European Council and the European Parliament in order to “prevent Europe from entering another era of political uncertainty”. The independent and non-partisan group consists of young people from diverse backgrounds and pays tribute to the European Commission’s achievements in a number of policy areas. “This Commission always looked for the common interest, not party-centred, but essentially political and truly European. The stability of the Commission is a central factor to promote progress in Europe and to fight the current global economic crisis.” Website of the manifesto: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/manifesto27/. Further information: youthforeurope@gmail.com.
just to add to your conspiracy theory, I clicked the Czech Presidency link just to see why they were polling on this and was informed that I had already voted! Probably because I used the link above, but was a bit surprised at that…
These fan clubs don’t seem to claim that they are launched by the European Movement, but they look less than spontaneous and genuine.
My guess is that someone feels disturbed by the dismal reputation of Barroso among the Euroblogs and wants to counter the effect.