Blair looms large in running for EU president

By Tony Barber in Brussels

Published: October 5 2009 20:09 | Last updated: October 5 2009 20:09

Tony Blair, former British prime minister, was the name on everyone’s lips on Monday as European Union leaders contemplated the choice of the bloc’s first full-time president.

According to EU diplomats and officials, Mr Blair is far from assured of the job, not least because he cannot yet count on the support of Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, or the leaders of several smaller EU countries.

But Mr Blair is increasingly looking like the frontrunner in a race in which no one, officially, is a candidate. “Blair is the name out there,” said one diplomat.

Choosing a president has never seemed so urgent after an Irish referendum last week in which voters approved overwhelmingly the bloc’s Lisbon treaty, which creates the post. The treaty does not define the president’s job down to the last detail but it would involve representing the EU on the world stage as well as chairing and preparing the agenda for summits, of which there are at least four a year. The president would serve a two and a half-year term, renewable once.

Fredrik Reinfeldt, prime minister of Sweden, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, told members of the European parliament in Stockholm on Monday he expected that the president would not be chosen until December.

But some diplomats in Brussels said the decision could come sooner if political and legal difficulties in the Czech Republic, the last significant obstacle on the road to Lisbon, were overcome quickly. They said the 27-member EU was working on the basis it might be possible to pick the president at a Brussels summit on October 29-30.

Apart from Mr Blair, the most frequently mentioned names are those of Jan Peter Balkenende, the Dutch prime minister, and Paavo Lipponen, Finland’s former premier.

Others, such as Felipe González, the former Spanish prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg’s premier, and Wolfgang Schüssel, Austria’s former chancellor, are cropping up less often in political gossip than they have before.

Mr Blair’s strong card is that he is an articulate, firm-willed and experienced politician well known around the globe. This would stand him in good stead in meetings with Barack Obama, the US ­president, or Vladimir Putin, Russia’s premier, his supporters say.

Moreover, Mr Blair has the backing of Nicolas Sarkozy, although diplomats say the French president could change his mind if Ms Merkel decided not to support Mr Blair.

Mr Blair’s candidacy is vulnerable for several reasons. Some EU leaders remember his vigorous support for George W Bush, the former US president much reviled in Europe, in the Iraq invasion.

Some also think the president should not come from a country such as the UK, which has excluded itself from core EU initiatives such as European monetary union and the Schengen border-free travel regime.

Several small and medium-sized countries, never happy with the idea of a full-time president, do not want a figure from a “big” country such as France, Germany or the UK. Belgium has a particular grudge against Mr Blair because he prevented the appointment five years ago of Guy Verhofstadt, then Belgian premier, as European Commission president.

But the biggest problem for Mr Blair might be, quite simply, that his candidacy is being aired too openly, too soon. “Frontrunners in EU job hunts have a habit of fading before the finish line,” one diplomat said.

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