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EUROPEAN UNION

‘He looks like a man who slept in his car’: What is the Danish media saying about Boris Johnson?

Boris Johnson will be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after his victory in the Conservative Party leadership contest was confirmed on Tuesday.

'He looks like a man who slept in his car': What is the Danish media saying about Boris Johnson?
Boris Johnson is likely to become the next British PM. Photo: Niklas Hallen / AFP / Ritzau Scanpix

Johnson had long been the firm favourite to win the Tory leadership race ahead of Jeremy Hunt, and will take over as the head of the UK's government on Wednesday.

He faces an awkward relationship with Europe – and not just because he reportedly called the French “turds” over Brexit.

As Johnson prepares to enter 10 Downing Street, Danish commentators have noted the apparent dead-end British politics finds itself in regarding the EU withdrawal and commented on whether Johnson is capable of resolving it.

The former London mayor has promised to seek a new deal with the EU or leave without an agreement on October 31st, the current scheduled withdrawal date, in what would be a ‘no-deal' Brexit.

But the British parliament has so far refused to countenance that scenario, and has on three occasions rejected a withdrawal deal reached between outgoing PM Theresa May and the EU.

Johnson claims he can land a new deal which can pass parliament, but the EU has consistently said the agreement is final and cannot be reopened for further negotiations.

“The deadlocked situation in parliament means that Johnson could easily be forced to call a new election as soon as next year. He must therefore simultaneously prepare brinkmanship negotiations with (the UK’s) by-far most important trade partner [the EU, ed.], fight a seething opposition inside and outside of his party and also prepare an election campaign,” writes Politiken’s EU correspondent Nilas Heinskou.

“With Boris Johnson at the helm, British politics could, incredibly, become even more unpredictable and chaotic,” Heinskou writes.

Danish public service broadcaster DR, in an article published earlier this month, described Johnson as a politician who “very much splits opinion”.

“The politician with the yellow haystack on his head has made enough gaffes throughout his career for newspapers to make list articles about it,” DR writes.

The broadcaster’s political analyst Kim Bildsøe noted Johnson’s skill with rhetoric in a country deeply split over Brexit.

“When you look at where the British are right now, I think they need someone who can tell that story [about what Brexit is supposed to achieve, ed.]. There are so many other things that seem hopeless and difficult,” Bildsøe said.

As such, he has made Brexit his selling point, despite there being “large holes” in his plan, DR writes.

“Boris Johnson’s Brexit plan has a lot of things, but detail is not one of them,” Bildsøe said.

Conservative daily Berlingske published on Monday evening an article which focused on last week’s reports that a meeting between a Johnson representative and the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier had gone “worse than even the worst of expectations.”

In the article, which also rounds up British reports on the incoming PM’s career and personal life, the newspaper’s foreign correspondent Poul Høi refers to Johnson’s route to the British premiership and his disorganised style.

“What does he want? He has not obtained power with a public mandate, but through an effective background campaign in a desolate Conservative Party; and has won a majority amongst primarily older, white, male party members by promising them the hardest imaginable Brexit,” Høi writes.

“Johnson’s personal style and hard Brexit line has resulted in many experts placing him in a global Trump-Salvini-Orbán-Bolsonaro, axis which shares (the concepts of) post-truth and shamelessness,” Høi writes, paraphrasing and citing Alastair Campbell, the former advisor to Tony Blair.

“He looks like a man who has slept in his car, with his crumpled jacket, messy blonde hair and general disorder, and that’s his style,” Høi also writes.

READ ALSO: Fewer Brits visit Denmark since Brexit vote, reversing previous trend

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EUROPEAN UNION

EU shifts right as new team of commissioners unveiled

After weeks of political horse-trading, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen unveiled on Tuesday a new top team tasked with shoring up the EU's economic and military security through the next five years.

EU shifts right as new team of commissioners unveiled

Faced with Russia’s war in Ukraine, the potential return of Donald Trump as US president and competition from China, the new commission will need to steward the EU at a time of global uncertainty.

To confront the challenges, von der Leyen handed powerful economic portfolios to France, Spain and Italy — with a hard-right candidate from Rome taking a top role in a commission seen shifting broadly rightward.

“It’s about strengthening our tech sovereignty, our security and our democracy,” the commission chief said as she announced the team at the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

France’s outgoing foreign minister Stephane Sejourne was handed an executive vice president role overseeing industrial strategy, after von der Leyen ousted Paris’s first nominee.

Spain’s Teresa Ribera, a socialist climate campaigner, was also made an executive vice president, tasked with overseeing competition and the bloc’s transition toward carbon neutrality.

As Russia’s war against Ukraine grinds on through a third year, security and defence assumed a new prominence.

Former Lithuanian prime minister Andrius Kubilius landed a new defence role overseeing the EU’s push to rearm, making him one of several hawkish Russia critics in eastern Europe to receive a prominent position.

Those also include Estonia’s ex-premier Kaja Kallas, already chosen by EU leaders as the bloc’s foreign policy chief.

And Finland, another country neighbouring Russia, saw its pick Henna Virkkunen given a weighty umbrella role including security and tech.

As part of the bloc’s careful balancing act, the German head of the EU executive had to choose the lineup for her second term from nominees put forward by the other 26 member states.

That has meant treading a political tightrope between the demands of competing national leaders — and putting some noses out of joint.

The highest-profile casualty was France’s first-choice candidate Thierry Breton, who quit suddenly as internal market commissioner on Monday accusing von der Leyen of pushing Paris to ditch him.

Von der Leyen fell short in her efforts at gender balance, ending up with 40 percent women after pressuring member states for female nominees.

But women obtained the lion’s share of executive VP roles, with four of six posts.

Controversial Italian pick

The choice of who gets which job is an indication of where Brussels wants to steer the European Union — and the weight commanded by member states and political groupings after EU Parliament elections in June.

Cementing its status as parliament’s biggest group, Von der Leyen’s centre-right European People’s Party commands 15 of 27 commission posts — to the chagrin of left-wing lawmakers like France’s Manon Aubry who warned of a lurch “far to the right” in terms of policies too.

Among the powerful vice presidents is Italy’s Raffaele Fitto, handed a cohesion brief in a nod to gains made by far-right parties in the June elections.

Giving a top role to a member of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s post-fascist Brothers of Italy party has raised hackles among centrist and leftist groups — while Meloni said it “confirms the newfound central role of our nation in the EU”.

After Green party losses at the June ballot, whether climate would remain high on the agenda and which commissioners would steer green policy was a subject of scrutiny.

As well as Ribera’s overarching role, the centre-right Dutchman Wopke Hoekstra will carry on in a position handling climate and the push to make the EU carbon neutral.

Among other eye-catching choices, Croatia’s Dubravka Suica obtained a new role overseeing the Mediterranean region, and the enlargement gig went to Slovenia’s Marta Kos — yet to be confirmed as her country’s candidate.

Other important figures going forward look set to be Slovakia’s Maros Sefcovic, handling trade, and Poland’s Piotr Serafin, who will steer negotiations over the bloc’s next budget.

All would-be commissioners still need to win approval from the European Parliament, with hearings to start in coming weeks.

Lawmakers could flex their muscles by rejecting some candidates — or at least dragging them over the coals, as expected with Italy’s Fitto.

Chief among those suspected for the chopping block are Hungary’s Oliver Varhelyi, nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s man in Brussels these past five years, who received a diminished portfolio covering health and animal welfare.

The stated target is to have a new commission in place by November 1st, but diplomats say that looks ambitious, with December 1 more likely.

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