John Peterson interviews the European Commission President

Before the interview took place, President Barroso discussed a diverse variety of topics (several mentioned in his earlier recorded interview following his Emile Nöel lecture at New York University on 26 April 2007), and said that he liked jazz music, tried to follow other music trends through his three sons, who introduced him to (for example), Arcade Fire, White Stripes, and LCD Sound System.

Excerpt:

May I ask now about the role of the EU as a global actor? Hedley Bull’s conclusion in 1982, quoted by Ian Manners in his article, was: ‘Europe is not an actor in international affairs, and does not seem likely to become one’. Just today, I read in Zbigniew Brzezinski’s new book that he claims that: ‘today’s Europe [is] more extensive in scope yet more distant from America while still impotent globally’. Writing 25 years apart, are they both wrong?

Look, I want to give you an honest answer once again. Is Europe more influential today than it was 20 plus years ago when Bull made his claim? Firstly, it is clear that the way in which the Americans and others look at us today is by far with more respect and consideration precisely because we are larger. I have no doubts about it because I was participating in a lot of those meetings 20 years ago. President Bush came here, as President of the United States, to the Commission. Not just to the Member States, to the Commission, as a supranational institution. And he was seated exactly where you are now. I was in my current capacity several times invited to the White House – it happened only once in the history of the EU before, with Jacques Delors. Why is that, just because they like us? No, it is because the European institutions count more now because we are now a much bigger player – we are now 27 countries, almost 500 million people, the most important trade bloc in the world, the most important donor of foreign aid – all of these things count. Now, of course, being honest, we cannot say that we are a political or defence actor as the Americans or others are precisely because of our diversity. But look at the literature you sent to me: in terms of normative power, I broadly agree: we are one of the most important, if not the most important, normative power in the world. Look, for instance, even beyond this case that he talks about: the death penalty. The candidate countries were adapting their norms to our norms. There is not another case, I’m sorry, where the United States or China or Russia, has been able to have so many other countries following their patterns. We have gone from originally six countries and now we are 27. It means that all those countries completely adhered to our standards and our norms. First of all, can you show me any other entity that has achieved this? Not at all. But we now have these common standards in terms of internal market and competition and the environment, you name it. Even foreign policy. Yes, it gets the media’s attention when we are divided. But most member states of the EU vote the same way in the United Nations. The pattern is impressive. There is not any group of countries in the world that have the same degree of homogeneity. And it is not only the member states but also the candidate states – so it is a kind of projecting influence in the ‘near abroad’. [...]

Excerpts from the EU-Consent interview will appear in EUSA Review, UACES News, and European Political Science during autumn 2007.

Thanks are owed to Dr Andrea Birdsall and Prof Charlie Jeffery of the University of Edinburgh, Prof Alberta Sbragia of the University of Pittsburgh, and Prof Neil Fligstein of the University of California for their help in choosing the President Barroso’s reading list based on the results of the open poll of EU academics.

The initiative in detail

Full transcript of the interview

 Open poll results