Consensus as the guiding spirit of EU politics

The election of Herman Van Rompuy as EU president and Catherine Ashton as EU foreign minister is in keeping with the consensus-based spirit of European politics, the website Vest.si writes: "The consensus reached among the European heads of government was to select weak and barely known figures for the two new posts in the EU. This is a sign of continuation in the spirit of European policy, which must always be based on consensus. Consensus is the EU's most important concept. And if it means that its leaders have to be weak and rather non-descript personalities then that's the price that has to be paid for things to continue moving forward without too much of a commotion. What this will mean for Europe's long-term development is hard to tell. But experience has shown that this is the way to move ahead slowly, to expand while at the same time maintaining a stable community of peoples and be successful economically. On the other hand the problem of Europe increasingly being governed by technocrats grows worse."

» full article (external link, Slovenian)
More from the press review on the subject » EU Policy, » EU Constitution, » Europe