http://synonblog.dailymail.co.uk/2012/12/christmas-joy-putins-deltoids-and-pecs-leave-top-eurocrats-emotional.html
24 December 2012 12:19 AM
Column from Monday's Irish Daily Mail
On Friday my Christmas present came a little early. Which is to say, on Friday I had 45 minutes in the European Council press room with Vladimir Putin.
Okay, it's not what you might want gift-wrapped, but it suited me fine. Talk about Epiphany: I had the chance to sit just four rows from the Russian president, dead in front of him, so I could watch how he would deal with both Hermann Van Rompuy and José Manuel Barroso.
And how did he deal with them? Like a shark swimming circuits in a tank: no killer jaws today, boys, but let’s just remind them who has the muscle here.
And I do mean muscle, the real stuff, as well as the economic stuff – as in oil, minerals, you name it, but especially in natural gas. President Putin has that kind of economic muscle, and we need it.
But it was real muscle he used to such effect on Friday.
You have to picture the scene. A packed press room, like a small theatre with a low ceiling, and a platform with three lecterns lined up at the front. Another is off to the side. That is where a council major-domo stands as he opens and closes the press conferences.
Every row is filled with journalists and cameramen, waiting for the press conference to mark the end of Mr Putin’s first visit to Brussels since his re-election in May. In from the wings walk Mr Barroso, the president of the commission, Mr Van Rompuy, president of the council, and Mr Putin, president of the Russian Federation.
Or put it this way. In walks a Portuguese politician with the physique of a cruise-ship singer gone to fat, a former Belgian prime minister with the physique of a weed, and a muscled-up former KGB thug with black belts in both karate and judo who is now president of the largest country in the world.
The moment I saw the three walk in and take their places at the lecterns, I knew this was going to be holiday cheer. At least for me. But then, I did once spend a very cheering afternoon watching a shark tank in South Africa just because I reckoned you never know what a creature like that might do next.
Which is exactly what I thought about Mr Putin from the moment Mr Van Rompuy started the press conference with his opening statement. The Belgian was reading from his piece of paper, all the boilerplate one hears every time Mr Van Rompuy gets a microphone – ‘strategic relationship…global challenges…partnership for modernisation…domestic economic developments.’
To Mr Van Rompuy’s left, his rival for EU status, Mr Barroso, was looking busy, reading through papers on his plexiglass lectern, jotting in margins.
But to Mr Van Rompuy’s right, Mr Putin stood with his head up. He planted his feet apart, so that his stance was nearly as broad as his shoulders (and they are notably broad). He swept his gaze across the journalists.
Meanwhile the two eurocrats had their eyes on their papers and had their knees and feet together, as though they had been trained by nuns.
Mr Van Rompuy droned. Mr Putin scanned the room with an attitude of tolerant boredom. He stretched his muscled neck slightly from side to side. His deltoids and pectoral muscles appeared to flex inside his jacket. He shifted his weight from one foot to another, like a boxer shifting in his corner before heading into the centre of the ring.
Mr Van Rompuy kept droning, Mr Barroso kept reading papers. Mr Putin looked calm, and in no need to look down or turn away from the gaze of the reporters.
At one point the Russian brushed some imaginary dust from his lectern. He scanned the ceiling.
Then it was Mr Barroso’s turn to read from a paper. Nothing in Mr Putin changed, except he moved a pen up his lectern, then back down it. It was a gesture of superior boredom. He flexed again. Then it was his turn.
A few words from his notes, then Mr Putin spoke without notes. His speech was fluid. The only oddity was that the translator from Russian was female, while the words were coming out pure testosterone: the EU energy legislation was ‘uncivilised.’
He criticised the EU legislation meant to create a single energy market: ‘Of course the EU has the right to take any decision, but as I have mentioned, we are stunned by the fact that this decision is given retroactive force.’
He was stunned because the legislation would cut off Russia’s Gazprom from dominating distribution networks. There were disputes over access to pipelines, and over oil prices and gas prices.
Then it was time for questions from reporters. There were questions on Syria, the chances of visa-free travel between Russia and the EU, and the chances of Russia helping with a Cyprus bailout. But in reply to a question, Mr Barroso went back to Mr Putin’s criticisms of the EU policy on natural gas.
Mr Barroso gave a long-winded and pompous statement -- a lecture, really -- on EU gas supply policy, because, believe me, Mr Barroso is not used to visitors calling one of his policies ‘uncivilised.’
He dismissed Mr Putin’s complaints and insisted that the EU was ‘respecting all international agreements and also the principles of the rule of law.’ Mr Barroso made it clear he had finished his statement, the major-domo announced that was the last question, thanked all the journalists for coming, and said the press conference was over.
Except it wasn’t. The shark swooped in.
As the journalists started to get up to leave, and Mr Barroso and Mr Van Rompuy moved away from their lecterns, Mr Putin did not move. Instead he looked straight out at us, and spoke: ‘Just a second.’
The journalists all sat down again, ears perked: Hello, what’s happening?
The two boss eurocrats looked confused.
Mr Putin leaned across his lectern in a confident, casual way and started speaking to us journalists: ‘My good old friend Mr Barroso is offering his position in such great detail, with such emotion, because he feels he’s wrong. He knows he’s wrong…so please look at our partnership cooperation agreement article 34, the number is 34, article 34, partnership cooperation agreement.’
He then blamed the Netherlands for the link between the oil price and the gas price now in dispute, and pointed out he was in the business of increasing trade between Russia and the EU to $400bn.
A few more slaps towards EU policy, and he was finished: ‘Thank you for your attention.’
Now, and only now, the press conference was over.
But Mr Putin need not have thanked us journalists. The thanks go to him for spilling blood in the water. I could have applauded. Just last week, a senior international EU correspondent told me in despair that ‘what we are doing here isn’t journalism, it’s stenography.’ And it usually is. But with Mr Putin’s performance, the council press room saw a real, unchoreographed dispute, a confrontation between a man who has no reverence for the European ‘project’ and two members of an unelected elite who usually glide through Brussels unchallenged, like Cardinals gliding through the Vatican.
It made my Christmas.
But then to understand how invigorating such a clash is - and how precious it is when one is facing Christmas in this city, and I am - you have to understand this place.
If it’s fun of any kind you’re after, the European quarter of Brussels isn’t where you are likely to find it.
It is more than just the soul-crushing windowless rooms of the council press centre, or the soporific regularity of the midday briefing at the commission, or the relentless orthodoxy of the 'project.'
It is the whole place, the concrete canyons that form the grid of streets from the European Parliament at the Place Luxembourg to the commission and council headquarters at the Rond-Point Schuman, to the headquarters of the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs overlooking a park built with money from the 19th century butcheries and slaveries of Leopold II, King of the Belgians, in his Congo.
The place would make a stone of any heart, so you take what sunshine you can find.
Odd that my ray of light this Christmas should come from a former KGB agent. But there he was: the gift of the Magi, flexing his pecs.