The New European Union: Off To An Abysmal Start

In yet another baffling sequence of events, European heads of state have chosen two no-name leaders for the Union's top positions.

Last week, I wrote about the secrecy that the European leaders employed in choosing who'd become the first president and high representative of a post-Lisbon Treaty EU -- they played it off as though it were a strategy needed to secure big names for the crucial positions.

Tony Blair's name, among other heavy-hitters', had been tossed around for weeks. it seemed like Europe's chiefs would prepare to roll out the red carpet for a couple of high-profile names, and a collective sigh of relief would ensue because Europe's increasingly feeble union would finally garner some clout and solidarity.

Wrong. Instead, the EU chose Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy to be its president and Britain's Catherine Ashton to be its high representative. Even the New York Times news coverage of the decision couldn't help but exasperatedly and deliberately jab at the anticlimactic outcome of weeks of hushed discussions among EU leaders.

"Ms. Ashton, 53, has next to no foreign policy experience and has never been elected to anything," the Times piece reads. "Mr. Van Rompuy, who likes bowling duckpins and writing haiku ... only reluctantly took on the job of prime minister, and did not push himself forward for this one." The article then went on to quote one of Van Rompuy's silliest poems. Coverage across most media outlets is in this vein, overwhelmingly negative and critical of the decisions made.

The problem with these appointments is not necessarily the leaders' lack of experience -- it is the potential affect that their poor reception and negative media coverage may have on their ability to govern, with aggression and confidence, what was intended to be a more powerful and streamlined Union. The massive blunder serves as more proof that anything that's come out of the Lisbon Treaty has been doomed from the start. In the words of EUObserver.com blogger Hajo Friedrich, "Poor Europe."