PREVIEW: EU leaders head for top jobs conclave

By Nicholas Rigillo Nov 18, 2009, 11:42 GMT

   Brussels - As complex as a Rubik's Cube and as secretive as a papal conclave, the selection process for European Union president and foreign policy chief comes to a head on Thursday at an evening summit in Brussels.

Fredrik Reinfeldt, Sweden's prime minister and current EU chairman, has spent the past two weeks on the phone sounding out potential candidates with fellow leaders.

But with only hours left before showdown, intrigue and disarray reign supreme, with no consensus candidate emerging.

The two lists are 'not substantially shorter' than a week ago, when they contained 'about 10 names' each, a source familiar with the negotiations told the German Press agency dpa on Wednesday.

Insiders complain that the negotiations have been marred by conflicting interests and lies.

'We have the main balance between left and right in politics, but as you know, that's not the only balance we're talking about - we talk about small, medium and big member states, we talk about north and south, west and east, we talk about gender issues,' Reinfeldt said last week.

Meanwhile, several leaders are believed to be unhappy with Reinfeldt's attempts to impose a shortlist of candidates and are suspected of deliberately derailing his efforts.

Britain, for instance, is insisting on former prime minister Tony Blair, despite knowing full well that he faces formidable opposition. The theory is that London's real objective is to secure a top economic position within the EU's executive, the European Commission.

Germany is believed to be happy enough with the choice of former Italian premier Massimo D'Alema as foreign policy chief, since this would prevent another Italian, Bank of Italy governor Mario Draghi, from becoming the next head of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt.

Meanwhile, the EU's other big player - France - has done little to discourage conspiracy theories by remaining frustratingly mum.

With each nomination requiring a qualified majority from the bloc's 27 heads of state and government, there are now growing concerns that the summit could run into the early hours of Friday.

'The fact that it's a qualified majority vote puts the pressure on, but it also shows how complex it is for Reinfeldt to find consensus,' says Janis Emmanouilidis, senior policy analyst at the European Policy Centre, a Brussels think tank.

There has been remarkably little public campaigning for the post of EU president, one of the two new top jobs being created by the incoming Lisbon Treaty. Latvia's former head of state, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, is about the only leading figure to have said she'd love the job.

That may sound odd, given that it comes with an attractive annual salary of 293,000 euros (436,000 dollars), lots of travel and plenty of opportunities to mingle with the world's powerful.

Reinfeldt says no prime minister or foreign minister would risk antagonizing their electorate by seeking a new job in Brussels without being sure of getting it first.

But Piotr Kaczynski of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) complains about a lack of bravery.

'Politics is a dangerous game where you have to take risks sometimes,' Kaczynski says.

The secretive nature of the selection process, which will culminate with Thursday's conclave in Brussels, has come under fire from both euro-sceptics on the right and euro-enthusiasts on the left.

'The selection process of a new permanent President of the European Council, under the auspices of the Lisbon Treaty, has been carried out in the most convoluted and obscure of ways, outside of the view of the European citizen's and out of the sphere of public debate,' reads an appeal from more than 30 left-of-centre members of the European Parliament.

The latest speculation places Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy at the top of the list of preferences for the post of EU president.

'If you choose a new pope, you should pick a Catholic,' Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian premier, said as he urged leaders to pick a candidate with strong European credentials.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy might well back Van Rompuy, a relatively obscure figure unlikely to threaten their grip on Brussels.

But others, among them Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, argue that leaders should instead push for 'strong personalities' capable of giving the EU a strong voice on the world stage.

Alternative candidates for the post of president include the prime ministers of the Netherlands and Luxembourg, while Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos has become the latest man to rule himself out of the foreign minister post.

Women lobbyists, meanwhile, may be assuaged by the offer of a rarely mentioned third post up for grabs this week, that of secretary general of the council.