In the News: Anybody but Barroso?

Summer is over, and the negotiations for the new Commission did not even get hot. The post of the President never really got beyond "To be Barroso or not to be Barroso". Some Member States did try to make some noise (see in the Economist, how France is trying to nuke Barroso). In the end, Barroso is very likely to be there for another term.

Interestingly, Daniel Cohn-Bendit said in an interview on Euronews about Barroso:
“Mr Barroso was incapable of leading an independent Commission which held its own against the Council,and that’s the problem. You know, Europe is an institutional triangle: a Commission, a Council and a Parliament. If the President of the Commission is simply the Secretary General of the Council, meaning the governments, European democracy cannot work. And that’s my biggest problem with Mr Barroso."

I fully agree on that point! Our Euro-democracy has to be about power equilibrium and Barroso is just too lightweight for the post! Barroso is just acting a secretary, and not as a corner of the triangle. I see several reasons in such behavior:
1) Barroso does not have any charisma. He left Portugal without a national aura... Worse, his party lost the elections quite Badly after he lost.
2) Barroso is a planner, and sucked it up during the first term, to be reconducted.

If the first is right, then it will be again a very weak commission that we will have. If the second is right, then we could some real commission for the next five year. Gut feeling: both are righ, but the first is just too big for the second.

To conclude, I will take up Cohn-Bendit's suggestion that Barrosso should instead get the Presidency of the Union, if the Member States like him so much! Anybody but Barroso (but not Blair...)