Soviet-style secrecy in the EU

The new European Union president is being chosen amid Soviet-style secrecy, according to former Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga. The EU is working in “darkness and behind closed doors” and must “stop working like the former Soviet Union,” she said last Thursday.

EU leaders will meet Thursday this week to decide who the president, foreign minister and secretary general of the European Council will be. The list of candidates is a closely guarded secret. The British Telegraph writes:

David Miliband, an undeclared candidate for the post of EU foreign minister until he pulled out on Wednesday, compared media efforts to work out the EU appointment process as akin to “Kremlinology.”Kremlinology was the name given to Cold War-era attempts to understand the inner workings of a secretive and totalitarian Soviet government.The lack of public, democratic campaigning during Soviet leadership battles left Western observers trying to divine internal political dynamics from apparent trivia such as seating orders at official banquets and the removal of portraits.”Trying to work out who is going to be president of the EU Council is not dissimilar to decoding who was in or out in the Kremlin in the 1970s. It seems strange to many of us that 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall we have to dust off our Kremlinology skills here in Brussels,” said an Eastern European diplomat.

One nation that is particularly hard to read in this process is Germany. “Amid the squabbling among European Union member states over who will become the bloc’s first president and foreign minister, the one country that has puzzled diplomats in Brussels is Germany,” writes the New York Times. “It holds the key for the selection of the two jobs, and it is also crucial for influencing the direction of Europe. Yet Chancellor Angela Merkel, so far, has not put forward a German for either post ….” Times analysts are divided on the reason for this. Both history and Bible prophecy indicate that Germany will be working behind the scenes for key positions now or in the future. As Europe progresses, watch for Germany to take the lead.

For more on the selection process currently underway for the EU’s two new posts, read “EU Mulls Top Jobs.”