EU's list for top jobs "narrowing," Swedish presidency says

Nov 16, 2009, 13:39 GMT

   Brussels - The list of candidates for the European Union's new top jobs is getting shorter, officials from the bloc's rotating presidency said Monday ahead of a crunch summit.

   Sweden, the current holder of the EU's rotating presidency, is conducting a frantic round of telephone diplomacy to try and narrow down the shortlist of candidates to head the EU's summits and its foreign-policy arm ahead of the summit on Thursday.

   'There are still more names than posts, but (the list) is narrowing,' Sweden's minister for EU affairs, Cecilia Malmstrom, told journalists at a meeting with EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

   There have been 'many' rounds of calls between Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and his EU counterparts in order to draw up a shortlist, but it is not yet clear which politicians are emerging as favourites, she said.

   'The prime minister keeps the lists very close to his heart right now so I can't speculate on names,' Malmstrom said.

   The EU's Lisbon Treaty, which is set to come into force on December 1, creates the posts of president of the council of EU member states and director of its foreign policy.

   Britain's minister for Europe, Chris Bryant, insisted Monday that his country was still pushing for former premier Tony Blair to become president, despite the fact that EU leaders had agreed that the president's job should go to a conservative.

   'If you want to see Europe play a really important role on the global stage, it's important that you have a really strong team. That needs to be someone whom the American president would answer the phone to, the Chinese president would answer the phone to, and all the governments of the world,' he said.

   Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, meanwhile, said that his premier, Jean-Claude Juncker, had 'very good chances' of being given the president's job.

   'He is a man who thinks and acts European, and I believe he would further the integration of the EU,' Asselborn said.

And Italy's foreign minister, Franco Frattini, confirmed that his country was lobbying on behalf of its former premier, Massimo D'Alema, for the post of EU foreign-policy chief.

'D'Alema has an excellent reputation, I think he will be able to manage this very important job in an excellent way,' he said.

   Several ministers lamented the fact that the current round of speculation has focused mainly on men, with few women throwing their hats into the ring.

   Malmstrom said that it would be 'a good thing if we could have one of the posts for a woman,' while Finland's Alexander Stubb said that it would look 'silly' if the bloc could not find a strong woman candidate.

   But they acknowledged that there are relatively few women in Europe who have served as heads of government or foreign ministers, the criteria usually cited for the top jobs.

   One woman who has declared her candidacy is Latvia's former president Vaira Vike-Freiberga, who on Monday called for an open selection procedure.

   'Somewhat more transparency and openness would be advisable,' she said.

   Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt stressed that it was hard to narrow down the lists because of the number of conditions which EU members had set for each job.

   'There are a number of considerations that we have to take into account. There is the political balance, the geographic balance, the gender balance,' he said.

   But at the same time, he insisted that ability should play a key role in the final decision.

   'There is an issue of competence that should not be entirely forgotten when we are in this balancing business,' he said.

   And he stressed that it was still too soon to name the favourite candidates, just 72 hours before the summit opened.

   'That's Thursday and today is Monday ... Monday to Thursday is a minor eternity,' Bildt said.