Dirty politics begins with Blanc slate for top job

BRUSSELS - Dirty politics yesterday took the shine off what should have been the bright dawning of a new age, writes Sarah Lambert. The Committee of the Regions, the newest European Union body, was billed as the voice of the people and advertised as potentially the first step down the road to a decentralised Europe.

But its initial meeting plumbed new depths of political cynicism as the vote for president was characterised by extraordinary suspicion between political allies and allegations of dirty-dealing.

After 10 hours of debate the 189 delegates had approved nothing beyond the non-contentious idea of setting up a 30-strong management committee. They balked at deciding who should sit on it. The number of candidates for the presidency rose and fell during the day: in the classic style of the coalition politics to which most of Europe is accustomed, candidates cut deals to ensure that power was shared between right and left, regions and town halls.

This was too much for the Scottish candidate, Charles Gray. Appalled at a complicated deal between a fellow Socialist, Pasqual Maragall, the mayor of Barcelona, and Luc van den Brande, the Christian Democrat president of Belgian Flanders, he withdrew his candidacy in the hope that this would force a clean fight.

'I am concerned at the kind of things that have been happening here. I am a democrat,' he explained. There followed several adjournments and a long debate about stand-in delegates being allowed to vote on whether they were properly mandated to vote.

In the end the first vote was a three-way split and the candidates retired to carve up the presidency and vice-presidency between them. Mr Maragall conceded the presidency to Jacques Blanc, chairman of the French regional council of Languedoc- Roussillon - who nominated Mr Maragall as vice-president. The ticket was carried, though Mr Blanc was elected with 90 abstentions.