Wednesday 16 June 2010

The Barroso stutter

Sorry readers, but did you see today's speech by Commission President Barroso, the one he held in front of the European Parliament informing ahead of the European Council meeting tomorrow?

I tried to read it, but there is hardly any argumentative structure in the speech.

It is like he got out of bed and was immediately asked to give comments on what he thinks the world should look like. And then he started speaking while dressing up, thinking about van Rompuy, Merkel and the birthday present for his wife.

Just a short extract:
"We have to advance on several fronts at once. So this is the most important lesson from this crisis. In fact, first with the problem of the monetary union the result should not be going back on our monetary union, the result should be going further in economic union.

This is the important point, we need a real effort for an economic union in Europe. And that is why there is this holistic approach combining several instruments. Of course, fiscal consolidation and structural reform, but structural reform for growth and that is why the Europe 2020 strategy places at the heart of it the elements of growth, intelligent, sustainable, inclusive growth.

But this is not the whole program. The program is about growth, but also in terms of structural reforms, in terms of financial reforms and in terms of the new economic governance for Europe. Yesterday I had the occasion during the question hour to discuss this issue of the economic governance.

I will not come now in detail, but I will just say our commitment to use this opportunity to reinforce the economic governance at European level."
The language is mazy and the content is dizzy, this can hardly be called a speech, nothing I would expect from the leader of the European Commission and one of the key figures in EU politics.

There are two options: Either Barroso has a speechwriter whom he needs to fire or he doesn't have a speechwriter and he should find one very quickly...

2 comments:

Jon Worth said...

You've forgotten the third option: that he actually has nothing interesting to say...

Julien Frisch said...

But there are politicians who can say nothing in a way that is at least pretending. Maybe he has given up…