Give us a leader

A BBC report on 23 April reveals yet again the
desire of some European leaders to instate a full-time President
over the United States of Europe.

Pushing hard toward this end is Valery Giscard
d’Estaing, who believes the position should be filled by a
person of political experience, a current or former Head of State
or government.

A draft constitution will be released to a
European summit in Greece in June – and a convention of EU
leaders met in April to try to deal with some of the big issues
– who will run the EU in the future, who will hold the
power?

”Mr Giscard d'Estaing says there should
be a full-time president to replace the current system in which
the presidency is given to a different member state every six
months. He also wants a vice-president - to achieve geographical
balance, his spokesman says, and allow power to be shared between
bigger and smaller EU countries. Finally he argues in favour of a
new congress which would include members of the European
parliament and national parliaments. But it will be criticised
both by the commission and by smaller EU states who fear power
could swing too far towards the big countries like Germany,
Britain and France.”