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COMMENTARY
November 21, 2009
A new president
I have written a few things to make clear my disgust with the European Union's recent "Lisbon treaty" constitutional arrangements -- imposed in defiance of the popular will, and directly in the face of several national referenda. My general views on large unaccountable bureaucracies, with the power to overrule elected legislatures, have never been ambiguous.Life is never simple, nor politics, and so my reader may be surprised to find me saying this morning how impressed I am by the choice of the new president of the European Council. He is Belgian Flemish politician Herman Van Rompuy, elevated to prime minister of that country only last year, but a veteran of parliamentary processes. He was selected this week by the unanimous consent of the heads of all 27 European national governments. (Consensus candidates also seldom appeal to me; but again, this is an exception.) Van Rompuy is a "technocrat" by reputation (and I also dislike "technocrats"!) -- with what appears a deserved reputation for grappling with hard economic issues. Europe certainly has a few of those at the moment. We all know at some level the difference between "fair weather friends" and "foul weather friends" -- that the former are fakes. Van Rompuy is a foul weather guy: the one the other politicians turn to when things are happening for which they truly do not wish to take the credit. He is not one big dangling ego, as most prominent politicians are today. According to my information, he has had to be talked into taking almost every political job in his career, including this latest. How blessed we would all be to be ruled by men or women who do not want the job and are aware of their limitations. Politicians often claim to be humbled by their victor, but a humble, honest man would never strike such a pose. From what I can learn of the last year in Belgium, Van Rompuy has done a diligent and even courageous job of picking through bad options. As a finance minister in the past, he was responsible for a significant reduction in Belgium's debt, in proportion to national income; and for serious departmental clean-ups in an era when corruption has become rife. (Indeed, bureaucracy and corruption are head and tail of the same inflated coin.) My strong impression is that Van Rompuy is an honest man; he surely has an honest and "uncharismatic" demeanour. The Belgians have a kind of national genius for patience and discretion, and he would seem to embody this at its best. Dismay has already been expressed in Europe that both he and Britain's Lady Catherine Ashton -- the newly-appointed EU foreign policy supremo -- are little-known figures. There is longing for some kind of "Eurobama" to titillate the political palate. But the last thing Europe needs, especially now, is a spineless, incompetent narcissist with a gift for rhetorical enchantment. There is no conflict between having a spine, and being prudent, incidentally; they go naturally together, if we use "prudent" for what the word actually means. For true prudence sometimes requires making a bold stand against something that may appear superficially attractive. An excellent example is Van Rompuy's known opposition to Turkish membership in the EU. The Daily Telegraph has exhumed a quote from five years ago: "The universal values which are in force in Europe, and which are fundamental values of Christianity, will lose vigour with the entry of a large Islamic country such as Turkey." Few politicians have the courage to acknowledge this. It is a truth that stands against the malicious fluff of "multiculturalism." For the sake of buying votes, politicians pretend that a society can operate on an empty moral relativism. But no society operates on nothing; what we get instead is the collision of profoundly contradictory moral orders. And it is ultimately for the benefit of Muslim as all other immigrants to know where they stand, and to what they must adapt. Europe's extraordinary cultural diversity has been for many centuries of a kind quite opposite to "multiculturalism," and much more like "variations on a theme." Indeed, the European catastrophes of the 20th century came from direct challenges to her received Christian moral order, by fascist and communist ideologues. The way to prevent further catastrophes cannot be to encourage further challenges. Especially now, when Turkey herself is tilting towards Islamism, getting Turkish membership off the EU table is a fairly urgent requirement. But Van Rompuy is by nature no public crusader. He is not looking for trouble; only willing to deal with it when it arrives. He is instead a much-needed, quiet exponent of common sense: the very sort of politician we ought to be able to install in office by democratic means. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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