On substance,for my money ‘Europe’ has no mandate to deal with Russia. As you note, this is ultimately an energy relationship which means it is bilateral – i.e. Germany – Russia (a couple of other smaller playeres in the mix) – normatively it shouldn’t be, but never mind..

Last time I checked India was not in South Asia… – with fact checks like that I would recommend applying to the Indi… also kinda makes it important to EU High Rep role…

Cheers

Personally, I hope David Miliband does become High Rep for reasons similar to Alex’s post supporting Blair’s Presidency. I also think the FCO, Labour Party and Miliband himself are tough enough to take criticism.

As to your points, they seem even less well argued than mine – my piece was about Miliband’s appropriateness for the job of EU foreign minister, so his views on South East Asia are obviously not as relevant as his views on Russia, the EU’s largest neighbour and the source of a quarter of its gas.

And of course Germany cares about the ability of any prospective EU foreign minister candidate to get on with Russia, as Miliband would be all too aware.

Finally, yes, of course I’ve heard of Nord Stream. I was present at the beginning of its construction, in Russia:

http://www.eurasianhome.org/xml/t/opinion.xml?lang=en&nic=opinion&pid=260

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not really a Miliband fan and indeed have no problem with decent journalism – this isn’t it. I think your points aren’t really very well made and poorly supported. You would have been far better to attack him in his South Asia record where he’s had a perculiar habit of offending the Indian’s for some cryptic reason best known to the FCO.

The ‘Europeaness’ of Russia – as you say, hasn’t got much to do with the price of bread, other than Miliband has at least bothered to raise some politically uncomfortable questions with Moscow (albeit in an irratic way). N.B. BP had a minor heart attack when it happened – politically cheap or not, it was incredible that back in the day, London was supposed to be totally ok with KGB chaps running around Kensington with nuclear materials in back pockets. As for impresssing the German’s I really don’t think that was part of the calculus. Berlin are more than happy to deal direct with the Russian’s (you might have heard of a pipeline called Nord Stream which will make a total mockery of all forms of ‘European’ solidarity in about eigth years time). I’ll get back to you with a definition of ‘European’ some time around then…

Amyway, enough pointless points from me. On the views issue, it might be worth noting a little more upfront that personal views are personal views on global dashboard – not that I care, but some of you fellow contributors might.

Hasta luego.

What does the ‘Europeanness’ of Russia have to do with anything? What does ‘European’ mean?

Chances are, Miliband did lots of work behind the scenes to see if he could secure the high rep job – anything short of 100% guarantees is too high risk. Why? If Miliband went for the high rep job and lost, his British political career will be in complete tatters. The Labour Party faithful (note – serious gap in global dashboard knowledge given most have probably never knocked on a single door come election time) would never have forgiven him. So, instead Miliband will probably become the next leader of the opposition and subsequently probably the PM after Cameron’s five year term (which can only really be a complete disaster). Rather like 1992, the best election to ever lose.

Miliband’s relations with Russia will indeed then be very interesting. At least Dave kind of gets it – the Russian’s aren’t Europeans – stop pretending they are…