Anyway, the video is a nice reminder what the POTEC  (that sounds quite cool – is there also an official short form?) actually does – arguably not that much. So no need to get overexicted by this new position. A video that should definitely be watched by journalists and governmental website editors:

But is it too much to ask that the government gets it right? After all it is  often the member states that are keen to make sure that certain EU terms should not sound too similar to national terms…

So, today Number10.gov.uk – the official site of the Prime Minister’s Office in the UK had this top story:

The only positive thing about this story is that the Prime Minister got it right…

But coming back to the editors at Number10.gov.uk – Not only do they seem to borrow journalists from the mainstream media they also don’ t seem to care about feedback unlike the Foreign Office.

The UK Foreign Office (FCO) was quick to change its twitter status update after an intervention by the Commission Representation in London on twitter! (check the FCO twitter updates before and after this tweet)

But the website of Downing Street is still the same despite their presence on twitter. So, I wrote a DM to Downing Street – let’s see whether they change the website…and whether they react to DM on twitter!

The categories:

First, the president should be, well, boring — like Brussels itself. Politicians have knocked down candidates for being too controversial or too outspoken. Second, he should likely hold center-right or Christian Democratic political tendencies, given that Europe itself is headed that direction. Third, he should come from a country that uses the euro — showing full fealty to the concept of the union. Fourth, he should come from a small European country — anything other than Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, which normally dominate the union’s affairs. Finally, two wild-card characteristics: He should ideally speak French and have opposed the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq — if not at the time, then soon afterward.

Read the article (with more less detailed profiles of each candidate) here. Obviously the list is debatable: For example, it seems strange to include Angela Merkel (not boring?) and Anders Fogh Rasmussen but not Mary Robinson… also candidates from the Iberian peninsula might might not be considered since Commission President Barroso is from Portugal, to a lesser extent that might also be true for Polish candidates (Buzek = President of the European Parliament). I was also wondering about the language skills of the contenders… (Most of them fluent in French? – And what about English ?). One important category is missing: The “I made the case for the EU while being in office” – category.
Oh, and  sadly even the analysts (in this case: “assistant editor with a degree from Harvard”) of Foreign Policy fall into the trap of talking about a “EU President”…