France, Germany and bookmakers are backing Belgian prime minister Herman van Rompuy to emerge as the future European Council President, but nothing is decided about the EU’s new top jobs as a dinner to decide the question appears likely to stretch far into the night.
 
The November 19 2009 dinner is being hosted by Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU, and who has been engaging in a round of so far fruitless telephone calls to broker a deal ahead of the meeting.
 
The EU’s Lisbon Treaty takes effect on December 1 2009, bringing with it – among other things – the new post of European Council President, a new-style High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and a Secretary-General of the Council Secretariat.
 
These must be finalised before the process of electing a new European Commission can go ahead, with prospects currently being that the new EC would reach the stage of scrutiny by the European Parliament in January 2010.
 
The process of decision-making about the new top jobs will take into account the balance it would produce in terms of the EU’s geographical regions, the balance between smaller and larger member states, between political alignments and, by no means least, gender.
 
A number of media reports on November 19 said that Germany and France would stand together to back Van Rompuy. This is a change of position for France which earlier backed the UK’s former prime minister Tony Blair, who is now perceived as running second, although all such bets remain in the realm of speculation.
 
Prominent women leaders in the EU have been adamant in calling for an appropriate gender balance in the new senior echelon of the bloc. Depending on what is worked out about the foreign policy and secretariat posts, if the presidency goes to a woman, it would most likely be Latvia’s former president Vaira Vike-Freiberga.
 
Also said to be in the running for the presidency are Netherlands prime minister Jan-Peter Balkenende and Luxembourg prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker.
 
Once elected, the European Council President will serve a term of two and a half years, renewable once, and will have the task of "driving forward" the work of the EU Council of Ministers, forging consensus and representing the EU on the world stage. The job will involve working closely with the high representative for foreign policy.
 
Media reports have named the candidates for the foreign minister job as included Italy’s former prime minister Massimo D’Alema, UK EU Trade Commissioner Baroness Ashton, current Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn of Finland, among others.
 
Reinfeldt told journalists that the dinner meeting "might take a few hours, it might take all night" while separate reports quoted Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi as saying that EU leaders were "a very long way away" from deciding on the top posts.
 
A BBC report said that Poland’s foreign ministry had said that the process should "operate with transparency" with the candidates effectively being required to do job interviews by giving presentations of their visions for the jobs, followed by discussion among European Council leaders and then a qualified majority vote.