Candidate list for new EU top job gets longer

Tony Blair, Jean-Claude Juncker, Jose-Maria Aznar, Aleksander Kwasniewski and now Bertie Ahern: the Irish Taoiseach has recently joined the list of potential candidates for the newly-created post of EU president in 2009.

“I like Europe, I like dealing with Europe,” said Ahern when questioned by the Irish Times about a possible Brussels position, although he admitted that he had not given a huge amount of thought to it so far. 

Ahern also stated that he was second only to Luxembourg’s long-serving prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker when it comes to experience on the EU stage and that “maybe a small minority” of his colleagues “would like to see me give some of my time to a role.”

Negotiations over the three major political jobs – EU President, High Representative (who will act as the EU’s de facto foreign minister) and President of the European Commission – are set to begin in the second half of 2008, when France takes over the EU presidency. 

Although the new treaty contains a clear job description for the two new posts, their functions are still “deliberately unclear”, said Igor Sencar, the current Slovenian Presidency’s EU ambassador, in an interview with the US Chamber of Commerce to the EU. 

“Only time and political realities will show what the President’s role would be, or rather at which end of the spectrum between a purely ceremonial post and a fully-fledged leader at the EU level he or she will be placed,” Sencar pointed out. 

“It is probably too early to say what kind of problems might occur regarding the creation of this post”, he added. 

Juncker, who is among the candidates under consideration as the Union’s president, made it clear even before the new treaty was agreed that “the EU does not need a president who solely congratulates the US president on his birthday”. 

None of the candidates considered to be in the race for one of the three top posts have openly declared their willingness to run, but political haggling behind the scenes has already begun. 

Several countries, including heavyweights France and Germany, have repeatedly expressed their appreciation of Jean-Claude Juncker. 

However, French President Nicolas Sarkozy can also picture former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in the position, as he stated last summer after meeting Blair in Paris. 

“He is a remarkable man, the most European of all the British”, Sarkozy said. “I do not know what his intentions are but that one could think of him as a possibility would be quite a smart move,” he added. 

Sarkozy was backed by the new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who said that “Blair would be a great president”. 

The filling of the three jobs is likely to be the result of political bargaining between member states, taking into account country size, political colours and EU credentials, which de facto makes it impossible that two personalities with the same nationality or party affiliation will both gain senior positions. 

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