Tony Blair: EU needs elected president, former PM says

The European Union must elect a president to drive through sweeping reforms and lead the European Union on the world stage, according to Tony Blair.


A president would represent a seismic shift in the EU's 50-year history and pave the way for sweeping economic reforms and better tax policies. Photo: ALAMY

By Andrew Hough
7:00AM BST 09 Jun 2011

The former Prime Minister warns that the EU risks losing out to the economic might of China, India, Brazil and other booming economies.

He argues that a popular president elected by an electorate consisting of 386 million people, in 27 countries, would send a powerful message to governments around the world.

He said that unless the bloc adopted "strong, collective leadership and direction", it would end up trailing in the wake of emerging economies.

Such a post would represent a seismic shift in the EU’s 50-year history and pave the way for sweeping economic reforms and better tax policies, he argued.

But he shrugged off public fears about more control passing into the hands of EU institutions and called for a shift in the perception of the bloc's role from one as a peacemaker to one as a world superpower.

In an interview with The Times newspaper, to mark the publication of the paperback version of his autobiography, the 58 year-old said that without such a post, the EU risked becoming less authoritative economically and in terms of its military might.

This would place it a weaker entity than countries such as China, India and Brazil, all of which are currently recording booming economies.

“The rationale for Europe today is about power, not peace,â€