Herman Van Rompuy, the little-known Belgian marking the first anniversary of being chosen ahead of Tony Blair as president of the European Council, is warning of war.
Van Rompuy, an economist who refers to himself with a wink as a “grey mouse”, is best known for his delphic haiku poetry. However, in a departure from his own stated role as quiet convener of the European Union’s 27 national leaders, he has swapped 17-syllable observations for an apocalyptic vision of the dangers of Eeuroscepticism.
“We have together to fight the danger of a new Euroscepticism. This is no longer the monopoly of a few countries”, he said. “In every member state, there are people who believe their country can survive alone in the globalised world. It is more than an illusion: it is a lie.”
Quoting Franklin Roosevelt, the wartime President of the United States, he said that the “biggest enemy of Europe today is fear”.
He added: “Fear leads to egoism, egoism leads to nationalism and nationalism leads to war. Today’s nationalism is often not a positive feeling of pride of one’s own identity, but a negative feeling of apprehension of the others. Fear of ‘enemies’ within our borders and beyond our borders.”
There is no question that an aggressive nationalism is on the rise around Europe — xenophobic parties have recorded electoral success this year in Sweden and the Netherlands.
Van Rompuy’s native Belgium is moving ever closer to divorce between the Flemish north and French-speaking south over deepening ethnic suspicions. Eric Van Rompuy, his brother, is a leading member of the Flemish party that is leading the drive for a more autonomous Flanders. Talks on forming a new coalition government have been dragging on since June.
While Blair was rejected for the job of EU president because he was felt to have too much of a traffic-stopping personality and would overshadow the member state’s own leaders, there has previously been no danger of that with Van Rompuy.
As he himself said in April: “A haiku poet, in politics, cannot be extravagant, nor super-vain, nor extremist. He should incorporate into his actions a sense of balance, the desire for simplicity and harmony, the feeling of being part of a larger part. A poet remains perhaps best away from politics, at least in political action.”
But Van Rompuy has spent a year grappling with the near-collapse of the eurozone, one of Europe’s great projects, and clearly believes that resurgent nationalism poses more than a poetic threat to the greatest of all EU achievements – peace.
While he appears to be finding his voice, Baroness Ashton, the Labour peer appointed at the same time to run the EU’s External Action Service, is struggling to be heard.
Her first year has been mainly spent setting up a new branch of the EU, created in the Lisbon treaty to represent it around the world. The EAS, which has drawn staff from the Commission, European Council and member states, will be formally established with its own budget on December 1. After that, much more evidence will be expected of her fledgling diplomatic skills after a year spent fighting internal battles.
