Tony Blair’s European future, if he has one, will be thrashed out in the corridors and backrooms of the European Council building in Brussels this week.

At least eight years after conceiving the idea of a president of the European Council, EU leaders will finally have to decide what the job is all about. No decision on names will be taken but David Miliband’s intervention yesterday was clearly designed to show that the British Government regards it as a big job, one whose holder, in the Foreign Secretary’s words, would be able to stop the traffic in Washington and Beijing.

But Mr Blair’s opponents, who can be found mainly in the Benelux countries, do not want to see the job going to a big name and believe that the holder should be a chairman of council meetings. Mr Blair’s friends have said that he would have no interest in that sort of role.

No formal slot has been scheduled to debate the merits of Mr Blair at this week’s summit. Until the Lisbon treaty is ratified the new post does not exist, so a decision is premature.

Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Prime Minister of Sweden, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, is likely to seek names for both EU foreign minister and president informally in bilateral meetings with his fellow EU leaders.

Mr Reinfeldt has the job of compiling a shortlist, but the final decision on appointments will be taken by all 27 EU leaders, probably at a special one-day summit in November.

The delay has been caused by President Klaus of the Czech Republic, whose demands for an opt-out from the Lisbon treaty are holding up the ratification of the agreement already signed by the other 26 states.

President Klaus has finally indicated that he is prepared to sign, provided that the EU summit on Thursday and Friday agrees to his demands to exempt the Czechs from the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The situation has been complicated by a call from Slovakia that it must get the same treatment, even though it has ratified the treaty. Pacifying the Czechs and Slovaks will take up the summit time allotted originally to debating candidates.

The debate is being seen as “Blair or someone else”, a recognition that there is no rival who has the stature of the former Prime Minister. Other names mentioned include three current prime ministers — Jan Peter Balkenende of the Netherlands, Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg and Herman Van Rompuy of Belgium — and several former ones including Felipe González of Spain and Paavo Lipponen of Finland.

Mr Blair’s opponents are trying to define the role of president as narrowly as possible, while his supporters such as Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi have said that it should be a grand diplomatic job that strides the world stage.

Belgium, Luxembourg and Netherlands have said in a paper that the president should be a mere chairman of the four annual EU summits, while Poland is arguing for prime ministers to continue to have a key role alongside the president, again to avoid giving him too much power.

One Belgian diplomat said: “The treaty says that the president of the council should chair it and drive forward its work. It is not about going to the White House and shaking hands with President Obama.”

This debate has become a proxy for the Blair question, especially given the indications from the former Prime Minister’s allies that he would not be interested in a bureaucratic job.

In the debate over who should be the “face” of the EU, the Benelux countries want the new EU foreign minister post to be the main diplomatic job.

Kenneth Clarke called the Czech President the “Boris Johnson of Central Europe” yesterday as he once again made plain his opposition to the Tory leadership’s stance on the Lisbon treaty.

Mr Johnson, the Mayor of London, infuriated the leadership at the Manchester conference by appearing to suggest that there should be a referendum in Britain even if the treaty had been ratified, breaking with policy.

Mr Clarke said of Mr Klaus: “Like Boris, he is intelligent and he has a rather huge personality and he loves making mischief.”

European ambassadors were told by William Hague of the Conservative Party’s strong opposition to Tony Blair becoming European president last week. Some believe that the leadership would use the blocking of Mr Blair to argue that the campaign against Lisbon should cease. But party sources countered that suggestion, saying that objections to Lisbon went farther than Mr Blair.

Mr Clarke confirmed that the Conservative position on the treaty continues to be that it will not “let matters rest” if it is ratified by all states.

He insisted that he would not campaign for the “yes” camp if a referendum were held while he was on the Conservative front bench. But he told the BBC One The Politics Show: “My views on the Lisbon treaty are well known. I am not saying I wouldn’t vote, but I rely on the secrecy of the ballot.I don’t go around claiming that I have changed my mind but in order to get a Conservative government and to help my colleagues get in, I collectively accept that as far as the Conservative Party is concerned the policy has been settled.”

Picking a president

• The first president of the European Council will be chosen by the consensus of the leaders of the 27 EU states

• The shortlist will be drawn up by Fredrik Reinfeldt, Prime Minister of Sweden, which holds the six- month rotating EU presidency

• Each state can nominate up to two people. These will be whittled down to no more than two or three in total for the final shortlist

• An unwritten rule says the top jobs must be shared between member states. Poland, Denmark and Portugal are therefore out of the running as a Pole heads the European Parliament, a Dane is in charge of Nato and a Portuguese runs the European Commission

Source: Times database

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