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Alex Singleton

Alex Singleton is part of the Daily Telegraph's leader-writing team and is a contributing editor at the Sunday Telegraph. You can follow him onTwitter and email him at alex.singleton@telegraph.co.uk.

If you think the EU is Left-wing now, 

just imagine what it could be like after 2014

By Alex Singleton Politics Last updated: December 7th, 2010

At least José Manuel Barroso is on the centre-Right (Photo: PA)

If you thought Brussels couldn’t get any worse, just remember that José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, is – at least nominally – on the centre Right. He’ll be replaced in 2014, but instead of the normal horse-trading between European governments, it’s expected that the European Parliament will be able to exert genuine influence over who gets the job. Europe’s socialist parties know this, and they are determined to use their new powers in the European Parliament to ensure that Barroso’s replacement is a Left-winger.

Last week, they held a conference in which they formulated their plan to take control of the parliament and the presidency. At the next European elections, the candidates of Europe’s socialist parties – including Britain’s Labour Party – will act “as a coherent political family, with both a programme and a personality to lead Europe”.

They hope that having a presidential candidate will give them more “visibility” and be “better able to communicate articulate messages and policies”, perhaps with Left-wing policies such a Employment and Social Progress Pact and a European Debt Agency, to issue EU bonds. What’s more, the socialists are going to name their candidate for the Commission presidency before the election, which, they hope, will “strengthen and build the role of European political parties”.

I could well see them getting their man into the Commission – if they can win enough friends outside the official socialist grouping in the parliament. Such a victory might be a good thing, because the loonier the EU becomes, the easier it will be to leave it.

Tags: European Commission, European Parliament, Jose Manuel Barroso