Patten as EU foreign minister?

a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWjZq3wWl8uX0Kyx_6BZpweTYmaNc2XrSG37csZTKOQTwL_AXDwFZuzpY5zRvOsz3g62KXxKj4_EEDEfs5LhKikUVSWOGyjYIeusGiC-AE_7ZNBG-oUf1TTZEZWycxqSuvEV9Fn0KJSO67/s1600-h/patten.jpeg"img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 86px; height: 117px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWjZq3wWl8uX0Kyx_6BZpweTYmaNc2XrSG37csZTKOQTwL_AXDwFZuzpY5zRvOsz3g62KXxKj4_EEDEfs5LhKikUVSWOGyjYIeusGiC-AE_7ZNBG-oUf1TTZEZWycxqSuvEV9Fn0KJSO67/s320/patten.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366959009136050994" border="0" //abr /br /a href="http://crookedtimber.org/2009/08/05/patten-and-the-eu/" This article /a makes the case for Chris Patten as EU Foreign Minister. I think that the idea that there will be an EU foreign minister which will be a powerful post is unlikely. Getting the 27 sovereign member states to agree on a foreign policy will be like nailing down jelly. I think that, therefore, the foreign minister will not be as big a role as some Europhiles think - and perhaps as some of the Lisbon Treaty-drafters thought. This is particularly the case as several current Commissioners' portfolios cover foreign affairs issues and it would be difficult to reshuffle the Commission and redraw portfolios in such a way as to take away those commissioners' roles without greatly offending them and (probably) the member states they came from. br /br /Also, I think it is unlikely that the EU would want as its representative someone from a country that was not in the Euro. After all, if there is [effectively] now a two-speed Europe, why should the representative of the EU on the foreign policy stage be someone from the slow lane? Additionally, Chris Patten is a Tory and the Conservatives have left the EPP. The EPP has, generally, managed to get the main right-wing party from each member state to join them. This is a master-stroke of coalition-building. It would make sense that they would want to show the Conservatives that there are consequences from walking out of this bloc. As such, they might be reluctant to appoint a British Conservative to a high-profile post.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/38622711-5727321718133027650?l=vinospoliticalblog.blogspot.com'//div

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