'Hydra-headed' leadership takes over EU

(BRUSSELS) - A new-look leadership structure designed to streamline the European Union begins in earnest Friday when Spain assumes the rotating presidency alongside the bloc's first president, Herman Van Rompuy.

But as Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Van Rompuy and EU commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso jostle for position at the bloc's top table, critics say the situation risks becoming more hydra than hybrid.

"In fact, the new system is no less complex and multi-layered than the previous one," said European Policy Centre analyst Antonio Missiroli, warning of a "hybrid situation."

"Making it work will not be an easy task."

Van Rompuy's position was created under the terms of the EU's Lisbon Treaty which also creates the role of a foreign policy and security supremo, a post which the 27 EU member states bestowed on British peer Catherine Ashton.

While the much-vaunted treaty was supposed in part to answer former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger's question: "Who do I call if I want to call Europe?", he may find that in fact the EU phone book has just got bigger.

The pre-existing system, whereby an EU nation assumed the rotating presidency for a six-month period, is retained, but not for EU summits and foreign ministers' meetings, when EU Council president Van Rompuy and foreign policy High Representative Ashton will be in the chair.

That still leave meetings of environment ministers, finance ministers, interior ministers etc.

"The great weakness of the Lisbon Treaty is that it maintains the rotating EU presidency," said Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Green group leader in the European Parliament.

Since taking up his post at the start of the month, former Belgian premier Van Rompuy has been careful not to tread on the Swedish EU presidency's toes thanks to a gentleman's agreement.

Stockholm will hand over the reins to Madrid in the new year but already it seems that Van Rompuy has agreed to grant Spain more elbow-room.

Zapatero has managed to secure several prestige EU summits on home turf, notably an EU-US summit with Barack Obama as well as meetings with Latin-American nations, the Mediterranean Union and an EU-Morocco summit.

"We have made a gentleman's agreement," said Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos.

"Mr Van Rompuy will preside at the meetings, but Mr Zapatero will be beside him playing a key role.

"There will be no competition between the Spanish presidency, the council president and the high representative, but a complementarity," he added.

Spain will be offering foreign policy supremo Ashton its expertise over a broad swathe of her remit: the Middle East, Latin America, north Africa and the Mediterranean.

Barroso, the head of the EU executive arm, will be seeking a large slice of influence for himself, bolstered by the recent decision of EU nations to grant him a second five-year term.

Indeed Barroso, a former Portuguese prime minister, can be seen as the "the big winner" in the new game of EU musical chairs, according to at least one diplomat.

Barroso certainly has built a higher international profile than Van Rompuy and Ashton put together, thanks to five years of gladhanding world leaders at the commission headquarters in central Brussels and abroad.

"It will take some time for the new institutional architecture' to be put into place fully and even longer to reach a new equilibrium," said Missiroli.

On top of all this there is also the European parliament, the only elected body in the whole EU set up.

In an on-line end-of-year message EU parliament head Jerzy Buzek hailed the introduction of the Lisbon Treaty which gets rid of several national vetoes on European policy and hands more power to the MEPs.

"We have a new institutional tool," he declared.