Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson are leading a last-ditch effort to have Tony Blair elected as EU president as the diplomatic wrangling over the new post entered its final stages yesterday.

The Prime Minister made the case for his predecessor in a conversation with Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Swedish Prime Minister, whose job it is to draw up a shortlist of candidates. Yesterday Mr Reinfeldt began a first round of “confessionals” — one-on-one talks with all 27 EU leaders.

Today Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, will pitch in with a speech in Brussels outlining his vision of the EU as a global player with a liberal economy led by a strong, international statesman.

His speech is a riposte to seven small EU countries that have implicitly attacked the candidacy of Mr Blair — one of the few candidates with star quality — by calling for the first president to be a chairman, not a chief.

The support for Mr Blair from the Government’s top two figures showed that they are not yet prepared to switch allegiance to David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, who is being widely tipped as the new EU foreign minister. Friends of Mr Miliband again insisted that he was not interested in the post. He will certainly not want to make any move that could be interpreted as a sign that Britain has given up on Mr Blair before the final consensus emerges.

With a decisive summit possibly only days away on November 12, Mr Reinfeldt is squeezing in as many telephone conversations as he can to obtain one or two names from each European leader. He requires a shortlist for both posts, known officially as President of the European Council and EU High Representative.

He is not the only one taking soundings. Donald Tusk, the Polish Prime Minister, met President Sarkozy of France in Paris yesterday and will host José Luis Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister, in Warsaw on Monday.

On the same day all the EU leaders are due to gather in Germany for the twentieth anniversary celebrations of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, is said to be annoyed that the carefully planned commemorative events could be overshadowed by unseemly EU politicking. Out of respect for the occasion the Swedes, who at present hold the EU’s rotating presidency, will not plan any formal meetings then. There will, however, be plenty of opportunity for informal encounters.

The special summit to crown the winning candidates will be called in Brussels, but not before Mrs Merkel has joined President Sarkozy for Armistice Day in another opportunity to agree a France-German slate for the top jobs.

Each EU leader will be told that they can say anything they like about any candidate in their “confessional” with Mr Reinfeldt. The Swedish Prime Minister’s task is to head off a divisive summit that is forced into a vote — carried out on qualified-majority lines, with no country able to use a veto. This is seen by the Swedes as the worst-case scenario because Europe’s new president would start by knowing that some nations were set against them.

Mr Reinfeldt wants to be able to announce that the successful candidates were agreed by consensus and thus avoid a shouting match when the 27 leaders formally meet.

Lord Mandelson, speaking before his speech in Brussels today, rejected suggestions that Mr Blair was not seen as the kind of person who could painstakingly build consensus. Smaller EU countries have voiced fears that, rather than focus on the detail of European agendas, Mr Blair might be too keen to act as a global statesman.

“I have two illustrations of how Tony Blair’s ability to broker compromises is outstanding,” Lord Mandelson said. “He brokered very radical change and reform in the British Labour Party and built a consensus and that was not easy. I saw him do the same in Northern Ireland where change was brought about.”

Lord Mandelson also sought to play down the idea that Mr Miliband could become the EU’s first foreign minister. “I believe that David Miliband will be playing a very meaningful and effective role in Europe as Britain’s Foreign Secretary,” he said.

“I can see absolutely no sign in anything that he has said or done to indicate he wants another job. Indeed, I detect quite the opposite. Some people may choose to hallucinate on this subject but I am not going to do so.”

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