There are several distinct issues here:

1. The powers inherently transferred to a post under the Treaties

2. The degree to which the interests of 27 members can be aligned to arrive at common policies and positions.

3. The qualities of the post holder - the trust and esteem in which s/he is held, their grasp of the issues, their relationship with Council members and other key players, their abilities to articulate and negotiate on complex issues.  

I have used the term "non-entity" to describe a post holder who does not have those qualities in sufficient degree to inspire confidence on his own side - never mind in adversaries - that he is someone who can negotiate and must be negotiated with - and more importantly deliver on agreements made.  A competent negotiator knows what he can "sell" to his own side and what it will "buy" from those across the table.  Sometimes one doesn't equal the other and no agreement is possible.  But a bad negotiator can foul up the process even when an agreement was possible.

I do accept the premise that the EU has not been punching its weight on world affairs, and that, partly as a consequence, but for a lot of other reasons too, narrow US and other interests have been dominating world affairs to the detriment of almost everyone else.  I would like to see the EU, and the values represented by the Charter of Fundamental rights, much more influential in the future.

Both Obama (with his domestic opponents) and any EU leaders which emerge (with the institutional and other complexities they will have to deal with within the EU) will have very limited room for manoeuvre.  But I believe that much better global regulation on Climate, Finance, Corporate Governance, Energy sustainability, Middle East Peace and other conflict resolution issues can be negotiated by competent leaders even given those constraints and competing interests.

Bush and Blair really screwed things up.  I think the Obama administration and good EU leaders post Lisbon could do a much better job.  To believe this is not necessarily to be brainwashed by bullshit US or Blairist propaganda or those who want to be "lefter than thou" by being critical of anything Obama might try to do.  Of course he represents US interests, and quite effectively in my view.  How effectively are EU interests going to be represented?  That is the key question that awaits an answer, and I do not hold with those who attack and label anyone who criticises EU performance to date as being the dupes of US or Blairist propaganda.

notes from no w here