Past the midway stage of his audition to become the next European commissioner for relations with the European Union’s neighbours and would-be members, Johannes Hahn was asked a question about Turkey and Cyprus. Hahn said he lacked “diplomatic” experience, adding: “I don’t want to be a bull in a china shop”. The exchange summed up Hahn’s challenge. A local politician who in 2009 became the European commissioner for regional policy, the 56-year-old Austrian now has to make himself into a diplomatic figure responsible for nursing the aspirations of would-be members of the EU and helping to douse fires in what …read more
Source: European Voice
