Tony Blair's Bid for E.U. President: Opposition Growing - Catherine Mayer
Here's a riddle: What unites French Socialists and British Conservatives, brings feminists together with the editors of prurient tabloid newspapers and gives shared purpose to a clutch of small European countries and more than 37,000 signatories to an online petition? Answer: Tony Blair. Across Europe, natural adversaries and strange bedfellows are finding common purpose in their efforts to stop Britain's former Prime Minister from assuming the role popularly known as president of Europe.
Philippe Moreau Defarges, European affairs specialist for the French Institute of International Relations, sees Iraq as the first strike against Blair. But he also believes that Britain's history of semi-detachment from the E.U. rules him out. "The very candidacy of Mr. Blair is a slap in the face for Europe, given his action regarding the Iraq war, the very strong positions he's taken to counter prevailing European objectives during E.U. construction and the U.K.'s own habit of participating only in those E.U. projects it wants to be involved with," says Moreau Defarges.
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