Tony Blair should be made head of a stronger European Union that would be able to compete with China and the United States on the world stage, the Foreign Secretary said yesterday.

David Miliband said that the new EU president needed to be someone who “stopped the traffic” in Washington and Beijing and was guaranteed the highest access to world leaders.

With EU leaders preparing to start talking about Mr Blair’s prospects this week, his supporters have begun a sustained campaign to showcase the advantages he would bring to the role. The behind the scenes battle is becoming increasingly fraught, with some of the smaller EU countries combining in a “Stop Blair” effort. So far he is the only politician to be backed publicly for the role.

The Foreign Secretary told the BBC that a Blair presidency would be “very good for Britain as well as very good for Europe”.

He also ruled himself out of the race for the second post being created by the Lisbon treaty — that of foreign affairs chief. His allies are angry that Belgium and Luxembourg have backed him for the role, asking him about it to try to scupper Mr Blair’s chances in the bigger job.

In an article for The Times today Mr Miliband calls for the EU to expand by taking in the western Balkans, Turkey and Ukraine and to step up and take its place as the world’s largest market and strongest regional alliance.

The leaders of the 27 EU member states meet in Brussels on Thursday to thrash out the remit of the new president, with some of the smaller states favouring a low-profile role involving little more than chairing meetings.

The Conservatives oppose Mr Blair strongly but it is believed that European leaders such as Angela Merkel could back him to balance a British Eurosceptic government in the event of a Tory victory in the general election.

Mr Miliband is a Blairite, but Gordon Brown has also supported Mr Blair’s candidacy from the start. Labour MPs believe that the Prime Minister’s short-term ambitions would be helped by an EU president who so antagonised the Tories. In addition, if Mr Brown lost the election and hoped for an international post, having Mr Blair in such a powerful role would be no disadvantage.

Mr Miliband told the Andrew Marr Show that the Lisbon treaty gave Europe a more efficient system for running its affars. “It needs to take that opportunity, otherwise we will find the world run by America and China without any reference to us,” he said. “It all comes down to what the heads of government want the job to be. It’s about whether or not Europe wants a strong leader in that position. I think that hasn’t yet been resolved in the minds of a number of Europe’s leaders.”

He said that other EU leaders found it difficult to understand why the Tories would oppose having a British politician in the top job. “In every other country they would be delighted if one of their former prime ministers was being nominated by governments around Europe,” he said.

Mark Francois, the Conservatives’ Europe spokesman, said: “The British people do not like the Lisbon treaty and if it was used to impose Tony Blair as European president without the British people having a say it would only underline the treaty’s complete lack of democratic legitimacy.”

Times Recommends

• Baroness Ashton: EU couldn’t make it up
• The other belles de nos jours
• Why too much of a good thing is bad for you