A Man and his Times

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Barroso himself has never lacked self-confidence. During the heady days of the 1974 Portuguese revolution, he was a student leader of a Maoist group. As a young law professor, he launched himself on a career in the center-right Social Democratic Party, serving as Foreign Minister in the early 1990s. In 2002, on a platform of belt tightening and reform, he led his party out of opposition and into government, and soon joined Spain, then led by José María Aznar, in aligning Portugal with the U.S.-British coalition planning to oust Saddam Hussein from the leadership of Iraq. Under the primary sponsorship of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, he emerged in mid-2004 as a compromise candidate for President.

Barroso is convinced the services law will pass, though what it will look like once the Parliament's version is reconciled with member states' demands later this year is an open question. Last week negotiators for the Socialists and the conservative European People's Party hammered out a compromise that would ban any E.U. country from putting up discriminatory barriers to foreign service providers — while also giving nervous governments broad rights to block them "for reason of public policy or public security or social security or for protection of the health of the environment." Some business advocates believe that provision effectively guts the directive, but Barroso appears unconcerned. "After the vote, we'll have a directive that fulfills our goals for a truly internal market for services while addressing the social concerns that exist in some of our countries."

Is such optimism warranted? Barroso sees hope for the reform agenda in what he calls a "a courageous reform" by the French government, whose National Assembly last week pushed through a new law designed to encourage firms to hire more young people by allowing companies to easily fire workers under 26 during their first two years on the job. Signs that both the German and French economies are picking up could also give reform a boost. But even if the directive is passed into law, it's hard to believe that Barroso's reputation will be completely cleansed. Even some with no ideological animus against him have judged his leadership ineffectual. "He was viewed originally as a master tactician, but he hasn't managed to become an integrating figure," says Janis Emmanouilidis, a European integration and policy expert at the Center for Applied Policy Research in Munich.

Still, those in member states who detect a mote in Barroso's eye might notice the beam in their own. When it comes to economic policy, the Commission has limited powers; it's the member states who have to do the hard work of passing laws and changing attitudes so that Europe is able to compete globally. "If at the end of my mandate, we have 27 states and 500 million people working in a single European market, that will be a great achievement," says Barroso. But the President knows how Europe now runs. "I'm a pilot," he says, "not an admiral." His challenge is that if the European economy sails into clear blue water, 27 admirals will take the credit. If it hits the rocks, they'll blame the pilot.