"If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants"
David Ogilvy
– Founder of Ogilvy & Mather
One of the most inspirational books that I read in my
life, was the autobiography of David Ogilvy: the founder of the Ogilvy &
Mather advertising agency.
This book, called “Ogilvy on Advertising”, was like “The
secret of my success” for intellectuals: streetsmart, thorough, thought-provoking,
witty and with loads of good examples of concepts, campaigns and (personal) behaviour
that did AND did not work.
One of the most inspirational quotes in this book was
the aforementioned quote about the company of giants... Inspirational, because
it demands a lot of guts to contract someone, who could theoretically be your
own worst enemy: someone who is better and / or more talented than you.
This is exactly the reason that only the best and
gutsiest leaders dare to do this: the true leaders. They are not afraid to be
overpowered by new people that they contracted, because they are indeed true
leaders.
This Ogilvy quote is unfortunately a quote that comes to mind,
when we think about the new candidates for the European Parliament and the European
Commission.
On May 25th, the elections for the European Parliament
will be held in most countries (May 22nd in The Netherlands). A few days later
the European Council will decide upon the new European Commission and its
chairman, who will succeed José Manuel Barroso.
Of course, there are countries in Europe, who think
that their candidates for the European Parliament (and the European Commission) should be the best of the
best. However, The Netherlands is certainly not one of them and I presume that
many other countries think likewise, unfortunately.
From the Dutch members in European Parliament, only
Sophie in ’t Veld of (liberal-democrat) D66 is really an outstanding politician,
with a good and distinctive "voice" and good ideas. D66 is almost the only party
in The Netherlands, which takes Europe very seriously; their main candidate shows
this.
Bas Eickhout of GroenLinks (environmental party) does
not do so bad either, as at least he is visible (a.o. at Twitter) and he seems to
have an opinion that you can (dis)agree with.
However, the leading MEP’s, of the traditionally most influential parties in
The Netherlands, seem to be a bunch of political nitwits, “stickers” and
good-for-nothings.
Wim van de Camp (CDA; christian-democrat) and Thijs Berman (PvdA; labour), as well as
their henchmen, have been nearly invisible during the last four years.
Hans
van Baalen (VVD; liberal-conservative), on the other hand, was very visible in a negative way, as he has been identified as the MEP, who performed the least ballots in the European Parliament, due to being absent all the time.
These three people and their fraction members had opinions that were exchangeable, unimportant and never out of
the ordinary. And I’m afraid that this is also true for many other European
representatives, representing other countries.
Is it any wonder that an eloquent, intelligent and mean
political streetfighter, like UKIP’s Nigel Farage, could sink one MEP after
another with his infamous verbal barrages in the European Parliament?! Farage has been too often Lemuel
Gulliver in the Land of Lilliput. I don’t like the way in which Farage operates
and I reject most of his opinions, but boy…, did he give the other MEP’s a good spanking
sometimes.
In The Netherlands, the European elections will attract
close-to-nought attention, because we almost NEVER hear something from and about
the European parliament and from the people, who represent us there. I wonder
if that is different in the other European countries and I bet that a
substantial number of Europeans knows more representatives in the American
Congress by name than in their own European Parliament.
Nowadays, it is ‘en vogue’ to repudiate Europe, as the
institute that brought peace, stability and prosperity to shell-shocked,
post-war Europe. The European Parliament is the ‘required element’ of Dutch and
(perhaps) pan-European politics and nobody sees it anymore as the indispensable
institute that it should be for years and years ahead. That is very undeserved
and unwise.
And then we come to another objectionable topic: the members
and Chairman of the European Commission. The members of the European Commission
are nominated by their countries and every country in the European Union may
appoint one.
The result is that there are about six to eight significant
commissioner’s positions and the rest (20) is mostly futile. Of course, this leads to
much “wheeling and dealing” between the government leaders, about which
commissioner is getting which position.
Countries, who settle for a less
important position within the European Commission, can have a lot of pork in exchange
in the process. Nevertheless, in the end it are France, Germany, Italy and the
United Kingdom, who deal the cards and the rest must follow their lead.
Unfortunately, many European countries are putting more
energy in getting an important Commissioner’s position than in getting the best, most talented and charismatic candidate for this position.
Too often, being
appointed as commissioner is either a token of gratitude towards an influential political
dinosaur or a means to get ‘the competition out of the way’ for political "leaders". This is the reason
that many European Commissioners seem just as insignificant and exchangeable as
the members of the European Parliament.
Alas, this is also true for the next Chairman of the
European Commission. The end result of the European Parliamentary elections must
be officially weighed in, during the selection procedure for the chairman of
the European Commission, when it comes to his political colours. Nevertheless, there
is little doubt that the selection of the EC chairman will again be a matter of
“wheeling and dealing” between the government leaders, with the final, decisive votes for France and Germany.
And unfortunately, there is also little doubt that the
candidate for the position will indeed be cooperative and intelligent, but also
weak and uninspiring and laden with the charisma of a doormat.
A political
nobody as the chief of a whole bunch of political nobodies...
The new “chief commissioner” will be a political apparatchik, who won’t
attract too much attention, away from the national leaders. These can keep on celebrating
“their” European achievements as national victories, while blaming the chief
commissioner for everything that goes wrong within Europe.
To prove my case, I will mention the people who are in
the lead for being appointed as chief
commissioner:
- Jean-Claude Juncker – Former Prime Minister of Luxemburg and former chairman of the Euro-group is the leading Christian-Democrat candidate and German chancellor Angela Merkel’s favorite;
- Juncker has been more or less identified as a ‘boozer’ by Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, his successor as chairman of the Euro-Group. The fact that Dijsselbloem dared to do so, proves Juncker's insignificance;
- Martin Schulz – The chairman of the European Parliament is the candidate for the Social-Democrat party within Europe;
- Martin Schulz: what can we say more about him than that he gives some people “the willies” with his speeches;
- Guy Verhofstadt – The former Belgian Prime Minister and a strongly pro-Europe liberal-conservative is
the liberal candidate;
- Guy Verhofstadt is chosen by a.o. Dutch PM Mark Rutte, in spite of the fact that Rutte totally disagrees with Verhofstadts 'Grand Visions' on the Federal Europe of the future. How is that for being taken seriously?!
As long as ‘Europe’ chooses lightweights like these
people as their official leaders, nothing will really change with respect to the appreciation for
the European Union in the European countries and abroad.
David Ogilvy would be ashamed of this, but hey… he passed
away in 1999 and this is how we do it in Europe after all...
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