Jose Mourinho steals constantly the show, not only with his natural performance but also with brilliant results on the top of the European football world. Mourinho a man with a clear vision of the game and how a team can win!
But Barroso doesn’t give up, he is trying hard. The plans to personalise his image, contained in a secret letter from confidante Luxemburg Commissioner Viviane Reding seem about to be implemented. They include a personal photographer and TV producer on call 24 hours a day, four speechwriters on permanent standby and eight writers for the Commission President’s website. And let’s not forget proposals to schmooze journalists by paying their expenses if they cover his foreign trips.
Barroso tried to copy the American President Obama when he addressed the European Parliament in his annual address, this year called (guess) the State of the Union. Barroso did not deliver the speech from his usual seat as Commission President but went straight to the pulpit normally reserved for Heads of State. He also tried to imitate the US President by making eye-contact with his audience, a part of Obama’s rhetorical magic, but Barroso forgot to use a teleprompter to create that effect.
Barroso’s staff had tried hard to write a speech which was more than the usual summing up of the most important subjects in the annual Commission work plan and highlights of the past year. But even with the best will in the world, we didn’t hear a vision for how to attack the huge problems in the EU.
While member states and citizens have to heavily economise, the President dared to ask for a higher budget for his Commission, for the period 2013-2020. In the meantime there is a massive ‘underspending’ in many important fields, like regional policy, development policy and even social policy (the EU €2 billion fund to help workers dismissed as a result of the recession paid out only €140 million!). The Commission is evidently not able to spend the money it has, but the mindset in the Commission is as usual: ‘more and more and more’.
Hard to explain to the European citizens.The annual budget of the Commission for communications with the citizens amounts to hundreds of millions of Euros. Unfortunately, research to find out what the citizens think about ‘Europe’ shows more and more negative results with each survey. Is there anybody in the temples of the Eurocrats who really cares about it?
Editor′s Column: Jose Mourinho for Commission President!
As President of the European Commission, Barroso has the chance to be the most famous Portuguese of the European Union. But unfortunately for him, there is always that other Portuguese, the “Special One” as he calls himself, Jose Mourinho.
The Commission is evidently not able to spend the money it has, but the mindset in the Commission is as usual: ‘more and more and more’.
