EU Unity Will Be Tested

Interesting Associated Press analysis of who might the first EU President be. Although these AP reporters elude to Tony Blair not being a valid contender, I personally believe he remains a strong contender. I'll explain below what may occur if Tony Blair is chosen first EU President.


Before that explanation, read this report and also note the very interesting photo of Tony Blair the AP chooses to include in this report. Is that a halo or just a bad omen?

A president of Europe? Continent's unity is tested

November 14, 2009 By The Associated Press  ANGELA CHARLTON (Associated Press Writer)

Photo credit: AP | FILE - In this Oct. 9, 2009 file photo, Britain's former Prime Minister Tony Blair attends a reception in London. 

Very soon, Europeans from Denmark to Bulgaria will wake up to the reality of having their very first president, one person world leaders can call when they want to talk to. It's taken a lot of history to get here. (AP Photo/Pool, File) 

PARIS - PARIS (AP) — The European Union has battled long and hard for this moment: the imminent choice of its first president. 

 

To get there, the EU strong-armed Irish voters, brushed aside hostile French and Dutch ballots, and pressured the Czech president into agreeing to a single leader to give Europe a strong voice on the world stage.

Yet after all that, EU leaders meeting Thursday may end up picking someone from a small country with little international power instead of a charismatic heavyweight to head this continental bloc of 27 nations, half a billion people and huge economic heft.

To pick a boss they can all live with, they must strike the right balance between big countries and small, east and west, socialists and conservatives, perhaps male and female. They must maneuver between proponents of a strong Europe and those who fear it — eurocentrics and euroskeptics, in the local parlance.

It's a diplomatic minefield.

The decision will help define Europe's future, the climax of a decade of agonized contortions and oft-thwarted efforts to make the EU about more than money and markets and common rules about what bananas Europeans can buy.

"The time has come to have a personality who will make an imprint ... a European mark" on world affairs from Iran's nuclear program to relations with Russia, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said last week.

"We should have weight in the world; we are 500 million people," he said. "We should participate in world events and not just finance them."

The early favorite was Britain's former prime minister, Tony Blair, but his candidacy has run into trouble. He cuts a big figure on the world stage — perhaps too big for the liking of other powerful figures such as French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Now the talk among diplomats is that the EU president won't be that globally powerful after all and that the role will primarily be to liaise internally among EU governments. That would leave room for a low-profile president and a more eye-catching figure in the No. 2 slot of EU foreign minister, which carry the real international oomph.
 

There's talk of grudges: Will Britain block Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy as punishment for Belgian objections to Blair? Will Poland nix Italy's Massimo d'Alema because of his communist past?

The path toward giving Europe a public face has been a tortured one. First, there was the EU constitution, which was meant to streamline decision-making and stipulated creating a president and a commissioner of defense and foreign affairs. But French and Dutch voters rejected the constitution in referendums in 2005, fearing a threat to their sovereignty.

Then a toned-down reform treaty was born. That made it past most governments — but then Irish voters said no.

They were talked into a second vote, said yes — and then the euroskeptic Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, resisted. Under heavy pressure, the Czechs also signed on last week.

There are no declared candidates and no public campaigns. President Barack Obama's future European counterpart will be determined not by elections but over a closed-door dinner.

Blair's most visible handicap is his enthusiasm for the Iraq war, which many Europeans opposed. He is especially resented among European leaders who bucked resistance at home to join the euro, the bloc's common currency, only for Britain to stay out of it.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband is often mentioned for the job of foreign minister, but he insists he's not in the running.

Being on the left and coming from a big country, Miliband could have been nicely balanced against a conservative from a small country holding the presidency, such as Dutch Premier Jan Peter Balkenende, Belgium's Van Rompuy or former Austrian chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel.

At the last EU summit two weeks ago, calls mounted to give the presidency to a woman. That boosted the long-shot chances of Latvian former President Vaira Vike-Freiberga.

The logic of choices is often mysterious or counterintuitive. Balkenende is vaunted as a good candidate because his country's voters rejected the EU constitution, "which should comfort the euroskeptics," the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad surmised.

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt is known internationally for his U.N. role in the Balkans, but says he's not running. He says only that Europe's president should be "a good person."

The European Union that rose from the ashes of World War II has torn down its borders, adopted common standards in everything from the death penalty to the weight of cargo trucks. It has dug a tunnel to link Britain to the Continent and its haves have poured billions into its have-not member states — 10 from the former communist bloc — raising their living standards beyond recognition.

And that's where it should stop, say the euroskeptics, before national governments lose their sovereignty to a faceless superstate.

A face, say the europhiles, is exactly what Europe needs in order to take its proper place on the world stage. They have a stock phrase: When America needs to talk to Europe, it doesn't know whom to call.

Now, said France's Kouchner, "Europe will have a telephone number."

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As the Bible clearly prophesies, once the EU President is chosen, the world will know who to call; and it won't be the 'ghostbusters'. More like the 'globe-busters'!

So, what's with Tony Blair? Because Mr. Blair is the current lead for the 'Middle East Quartet' (and has been two years now), I'm quite sure he has negotiated much of what is required to get a peace deal signed between Israel and the international community. And Blair has done this behind closed doors, away from snoopy news reporters. To the former British Prime Minister, this is a game - a Global 'Power Game' in which he is looking to set himself up, politically, for a long time; or at least he thinks it will be for a long time. 

If Tony Blair is chosen as the first EU President, look for a major announcement from him within a six month time period in which he and his team will have brokered a peace deal in the middle east. Reason being, the Bible clearly states in the prophecy given to us in Revelation 17:8 that the 'dwellers on earth whose names have been not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come.' If Tony Blair is picked as the first EU president, what better news could there be then the signing of a peace treaty in the war inflicted middle east? What better cause could Blair claim to propel his 'beast' power into global domination?


This 'beast' power is the EU, a.k.a., the King of the North (Daniel 11:40-45) and the harlot riding the back of this 'beast' is the Roman Catholic Church (Revelation 17:1-6),  which, coincidentally, has added a powerful new member to its 'flock'; Tony Blair.

The EU/King of the North will ultimately decide to betray and destroy the woman riding it (Revelation 17:15-17) and eventually this leads to the final culminating battle against Jesus Christ Himself at the Battle of Armageddon (Revelation 16:16, 17:14).


The world is fast approaching the time of 'Jacobs Trouble' (Jeremiah 30:7, Matthew 24:21). A time of unprecedented wrath from Almighty God. Is there an opportunity to escape this 'Wrath of God'? I'm here to tell you there is. 'Repent and be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and YOU WILL receive the gift of the Holy Spirit' (Acts 2:38).


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