Few stunners in parade for top EU jobs

PARIS - Should it be Tony? How about Herman? What do you think about Jean-Claude? Is Massimo up to it?

At a working dinner in Brussels (on Friday morning NZT), leaders of the 27 states of the European Union will be promoting their favourites for two top jobs designed to give Europe a powerful new voice on the world stage. And a nasty little wrangle it may be.

The new posts - a European president, with a term for up to five years, and a foreign policy supremo - are the fruit of the Lisbon Treaty, an accord that was concluded in pain and after much doubt.

Ratified at last by the final holdout, the Czech Republic, the treaty will take effect on December 1. It opens up a further step in the march to European unification, setting down streamlined decision-making and a proposed end to the EU's splintered, sometimes chaotic, image abroad.

But the run-up to the Brussels bash is showing some familiar European problems. For one thing, the successful choices have to reflect the right political mix and balance the interests of countries big and small. And, with a sole exception, the potential candidates for the jobs are all B-list, reflecting the time-honoured instinct of national leaders to install mediocrities in Brussels who are unlikely to upstage them.

The exception is former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who began a discreet early run for the presidency job only to be dissed by France and Germany. Continental Europe's "Big Two" object to Blair's support for the Iraq war and his refusal to take Britain into the euro and the Schengen border-free zone, which are big European credentials. Despite this obstacle - and a "Stop Blair" online petition that claims 45,000 signatures - Blair remains in the field, his candidacy supported by his successor in Downing St, Gordon Brown.

If Blair is excluded, the position could go to a centre-right candidate from a small country. Names doing the rounds include Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, Belgian Prime Minister Herman van Rompuy, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende and former Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga.

Such thinking is anathema to those who say the whole point of the Lisbon reforms is to choose a frontman with influence.

"Europe has to decide to think big or act small," says Britain's former Minister for Europe, Denis MacShane.

"The choice is the usual Europygmies or Tony Blair," argues the weekly British newspaper the Economist.

"Britain's former Prime Minister has his faults; but he is a figure with clout and a name that is not merely known in Belgium. What is more, he would press for the reforms Europe needs. If Europe does not choose someone of his stature, it will be the first sign it has drifted back to sleep."

More candidates may surface in the closed-doors discussion, given a reluctance to show an interest before decisions are made.

An elected official who tilts at the job and fails could face some unpleasant consequences back home.

Swedish Premier Fredrik Reinfeldt, as EU chairman, is brokering the compromise.

If the big job goes to a centre-right politician from a small country, the EU's foreign minister - formally, the "High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy" - will probably be a centre-left candidate from a big or medium-sized member state. Here, the frontrunner was British Foreign Secretary David Miliband until he ruled himself out, declaring like former German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier that he preferred to stay in national politics.

Still in the field are leftwing Italian former Premier Massimo D'Alema, who is supported by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and Britain's EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton, a socialist whose chances have improved thanks to a campaign for a woman to be appointed to one of the top jobs.

If Reinfeldt fails to get a consensus, he may be obliged to push for a show of hands under the EU's qualified majority voting system, in which the size of the country's population is reflected in the number of its votes in the Council of Ministers, the paramount decision-making body.

Even then, the problems are unlikely to be over, for the Lisbon Treaty does not spell out how the EU's presidency would dovetail with the head of the European Commission. There is still plenty of opportunity for Europe to speak with multiple voices.