A Man and his Times
When José Manuel Barroso last month became the first European Commission President ever to address the French National Assembly, many Socialists and Communists booed and heckled. "Europe has more need for builders today than for accountants," Jean-Marc Ayrault, head of the Socialist deputies — many of whom believe Barroso worships the false gods of the marketplace — said at the time. You'd hardly guess that Barroso, appointed President of the Commission in 2004, took office with a substantial reservoir of goodwill to draw upon. Only the second Commission President to be appointed from outside the original six nations of the E.U. (the other was Roy Jenkins, all of 30 years ago), Barroso usefully combined in one person a variety of European constituencies. As the former Prime Minister of Portugal — a fascist dictatorship until the 1970s — he was expected to understand the aspirations of the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe; as an economic liberal and an Atlanticist — but not an Anglo-Saxon — he should have been able to bridge the gap between new and old Europe that opened up before the Iraq war. Above all, he was a fresh face. The two previous presidencies, led by Jacques Santer of Luxembourg and Romano Prodi of Italy, had left many disappointed and hoping for a new impulse.They're still waiting, more than a year into Barroso's term. Despite his pedigree, he still hasn't been able to stamp his character on Brussels. Barroso himself has never lacked self-confidence. During the heady days of the 1974 Portuguese revolution, he was a student leader of a Maoist group."If at the end of my mandate, we have 27 states and 500 million people working in a single European market, that will be a great achievement," says Barroso. But the President knows how Europe now runs. "I'm a pilot," he says, "not an admiral." His challenge is that if the European economy sails into clear blue water, 27 admirals will take the credit. If it hits the rocks, they'll blame the pilot.
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