[A-List] EU integration struggles: UK machinations

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

A useful piece of gossip from the FT's Observer column highlighting Blair's
successful completion of a task Gerhard Schröder is still trying to achieve:
wresting control of EU policy away from the foreign ministry and placing
directly under the executive. Nor will it do Hain any harm. And to focus on
what the European Commission thinks about him ignores what his colleagues in
the European Convention think, and they are looking more important all the
time while the Commission is embroiled in various difficulties, including a
damaging loss of credibility over its approach to competition policy, in
addition to corruption scandals, Prodi's remarks over the "stupidity pact",
etc. President Blair of a United Europe (as Giscard wants to call it) looks
ever more likely -- just in time for Hain to step into the breach back home.
Sorry Gordon.


Observer - UK
Financial Times: October 27 2002

Hain in the neck

Peter Hain spent the weekend insisting that his "number one priority" will
be to prove himself an excellent Welsh secretary, following his elevation to
the cabinet.

But much speculation surrounds the other part of his post-reshuffle life:
Tony Blair wants Hain to continue representing the government at the
convention on the future of Europe.

The former Europe minister's curious double-life has already aroused much
interest in Brussels, where European Commission officials routinely describe
him as "the most irritating person in the convention".

Ever since the convention started, Hain has been a tireless schmoozer,
trying to persuade everyone of the merits of creating a new post of EU
president - although he always stresses that Blair really isn't interested.

The Commission, which hates the idea of having a rival president around the
corner, can hardly hide its glee that Hain has been moved to Wales. "It's a
real blow for his credibility," said one official.

Alas, they fail to appreciate that, in Britain, being minister for Wales is
a more senior post in Whitehall than being minister for Europe.

Meanwhile, there is a turf war being waged about who Hain should report to,
as he pushes the British line in the Giscard convention. Is it to Jack
Straw, foreign secretary, who privately shares some of the Commission's
reservations about the pushy MP for Neath?

Or will Hain have a direct line into No 10, thus keeping the Foreign Office
out of the loop as the debate on Europe's future reaches its climax?

"The lines of responsibility have yet to be decided," says one FO flunkey,
with masterly understatement.