Might I be one of the first on Conservative Home to ask Mr Mandelson politely to think a little before speaking out in the way he does. He has escalated the public feud with the President of France by writing in the Sunday Telegraph to criticise leaders who take "populists and self-serving" stances to secure their positions domestically while ignoring the needs of the world as a whole.
Mr Mandelson has crossed the Rubicon in his latest criticism of the French President and is opening a Pandora’s Box in this matter. He is precipitating a situation whereby democratically elected Heads of State within the EU can be contradicted and challenged in the most public way as a matter of course by totally unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats such as Mr Mandelson.
I have a great deal of sympathy with Mr Mandelson when he tries to make sure that France and others in the EU compromise on their protectionist policies. As a member of the International Development Select Committee I feel passionately that one of the main ways to help the Third World is through trade. We must start to lower international barriers and tariffs so that these countries have the opportunity to export to us much more easily. This will also serve to lower food prices at a time when people everywhere are suffering from the rising cost of living.
However, it is not for Mr Mandelson to pursue petty spats in public. He is a servant of the EU, an official who must carry out the policy of the organisation. By all means present the case for free trade and lobby individual Ministers and Heads of State repeatedly, but do so behind closed doors – do not confront them publicly. Such grandstanding behaviour smacks of egotism, and no matter how valid the argument, it only increases the supremacy of unelected bureaucrats like Mr Mandelson and undermines any democratic pretensions the EU may have. If he really wants to champion free trade perhaps he can ask his former colleague Mr Brown to take up the cause and challenge Mr Sarkozy to a public debate – that would be far more appropriate.Though sadly even that contest would not be between two equally democratically elected leaders.
