How important is the Commission president?

“Had we but world enough, and time”, as the poet put it, then we would write a letter to José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, beseeching him not to be so damnably coy. 

Our Coy Master, asked by two 11-year-olds working for the German children’s magazine Dein Spiegel, whether he was more powerful than Barack Obama or Angela Merkel, responded: “You cannot compare.”

Barroso went on to explain to the young ones that although he is not the leader of a country, the Commission nevertheless still has a lot of power because it acts “like a football referee” who does not touch the ball but is still essential because “we whistle on the game, we make sure that everything is fair”.

Barroso says that “we are moving in the direction” towards a “United States of Europe” with one president and a common government, although differences would remain between countries, meaning that it would not resemble the US. Which means, presumably, that he will persist in being unable to compare himself to Obama. Go whistle.

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