European Union Struggles to Select New Leaders

By STEPHEN CASTLE

BRUSSELS — Days after securing the landmark treaty that will lead to the naming of the European Union’s first president, the bloc has lapsed into horse-trading-as-usual over the position — the kind of maneuvering that has often yielded the kind of bland leadership that the new presidency was supposed to overcome.

On Tuesday, the latest flurry over the flaws in the European Union’s way of choosing leaders swirled around the British foreign secretary, David Miliband, who reportedly dropped out of the race to become the union’s powerful new foreign policy chief.

Mr. Miliband’s preference for sticking with the Labour Party in Britain rather than moving to the uncertain corridors of Brussels threatened to wreck an emerging compromise package of appointments: a center-leftist as foreign policy chief, with a politician from the center-right, which dominates the European Parliament, getting the presumably bigger plum of the bloc’s presidency.

The Lisbon Treaty was designed to supply the union with the kind of leadership that would give it a more powerful voice on the global stage.

Some member countries — but not all — see the new president as an interlocutor with the presidents of the United States and China, for example.

The latest dealing has underlined the complications of getting 27 heads of state to agree on candidates who need to complement each other and reflect a political, geographical and ideological mix among large and small nations.

Without a direct election involving almost half a billion people in the bloc’s countries, that sort of maneuvering has been the traditional route for finding leaders.

Now, instead of negotiating behind doors for a solution, the union’s three largest nations — France and Germany on one side, Britain on the other — appear increasingly headed for an open clash.

The Lisbon Treaty, in addition to creating a permanent president of the European Council, where national governments meet, the Lisbon Treaty establishes a powerful foreign policy chief supported by a network of diplomats. With a reluctant signing by the Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, the treaty was finally secured last week after eight years of wrangling. Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt of Sweden, which holds the current rotating union presidency, said Tuesday that he was halfway through consulting with the bloc’s leaders. But there is still no date for a summit meeting to decide the who will be selected for the new positions.

Even European ministers sound weary. “It should have been at the end of this week,” Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, told France Inter radio, “but I don’t believe that will happen.”

Mr. Reinfeldt may have to threaten to use a new procedure, under which a weighted majority can agree on the selections without requiring the support of all 27 leaders.

In an implicit attack on the whole process, Poland suggested that candidates face a job interview in front of the union’s leaders where they would “present their vision of how their tasks would be conducted.”

In the unwritten rules for appointment to senior posts in the European Union, most candidates do not declare their interest before decisions are made. An elected official who is not selected for a senior position with the union could find the outcome politically costly at home.

Stephen Wall, a former British ambassador to the bloc, said that this type of negotiation was particularly difficult for diplomats, who are trained to forge compromise and not cling stubbornly to a political position.

“I think it’s always going to be a pretty messy situation, because this is a decision that E.U. leaders care about,” he said, “They will have strong views.”

But he is also dismissive of the Polish proposal for a job interview.

“Given that they have to placate the right, the left, the north, the south, the large and small nations, you could have a brilliant presentation but, if the politics didn’t fit, what would be the point?” he said.

The heavyweight contender for the presidential post had been former Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain. When his campaign failed to gain momentum on the center-left, as well as in Germany and among some smaller nations, a new consensus began to emerge.

That would involve Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy of Belgium, a conservative, becoming president of the union and acting as a broker of compromise, with foreign policy post going to Mr. Miliband, who is regarded as a big hitter among foreign ministers.

Mr. Miliband had declared himself unavailable for the post, but to many people that appeared to mere comply with the unwritten rule under which serving ministers never admit that they are candidates for senior jobs with the bloc. The BBC’s political editor reported Monday night, however, that Mr. Miliband had decided to remain in his current job.

A former Italian prime minister, Massimo D’Alema, is thought to be the new front runner for the foreign policy job, but his past in Italy’s Communist Party is a problem for some nations in eastern Europe. Other potential candidates from Britain include Peter Mandelson, a former European Commissioner, and the current Trade Commissioner, Catherine Ashton.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain is still supporting Mr. Blair, who is also not a formally declared candidate. Britain argues that if the presidential post goes to a technocrat like Mr. Van Rompuy, the union would miss an opportunity to expand its profile in the world.

But President Nicolas Sarkozy of France praised Mr. Van Rompuy on Tuesday in the newspaper Le Monde, describing him as “someone very good.”

Besides Mr. Van Rompuy, leading contenders for the presidency include the Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende of the Netherlands, Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg and a former Latvian president, Vaira Vika-Freiberga.

Mr. Wall said that if past experience is a guide, it will not be possible to find a compromise without a real discussion among the leaders of the bloc’s nations.

“If the Swedes have already got a clear route through this,” he said, “I would be amazed.”