The Hunt for Mr. Europe

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France surprised many when he abruptly put Tony Blair's name into play six months ago. The former British prime minister is far from sure he wants the job if it is mainly to consist of a bureaucratic chairman's role. Apart from his moneymaking forays on the global speechmaking circuit, Blair is enjoying working in the Middle East and willingly spends weeks there trying to nudge sense into warring Palestinian factions. Having brought peace to Northern Ireland, a dispute that festered for a century or more, he has the confidence and vanity to think that the impossibility of peace in the Middle East is worth his time and energy.

Now the official line from Paris, at least from the French Foreign Ministry, where President Sarkozy has placed two socialists as foreign and Europe minister, is that France does not want Blair after all. But the former British leader may emerge as a compromise candidate, as other names start to fall away and EU leaders look for someone who can speak for the small nations of Europe, which find that their voices on foreign policy often get drowned out by the big foghorns of the British Foreign Office, France's Quai d'Orsay and Germany's Auswärtiges Amt.

Europe's leaders will also have to find someone to be EU foreign minister and make sure these new officials are acceptable to the European Parliament, which will be elected in June next year. Making all this come to life is a mammoth headache for Sarkozy, who takes command of Europe this July in one of the last six-month rotating presidencies under the existing system of EU governance. If he fails, and Europe ends up with top officials who cannot inspire or make the EU presence felt worldwide, then that will be a further blow to Sarkozy's rapidly tarnishing image in France and abroad. The EU has a chance to have someone who can speak for Europe and pick up the phone when America or India or Brazil calls. Yet Europe's record of choosing the right man for the right job is not the best. If EU leaders flunk this test, Europe's global status, and with that the EU's standing with European citizens, will decline still further.

Macshane is a Labour M.P. and a former British minister for Europe.

© 2008