24/05/2004 (Agence Europe) - The future president of the European Commission should be a "convinced European". In principle, a head of government would be an "ideal solution", but this is not absolutely indispensable, as the main thing is to have someone who "keeps Europe united". These were the views expressed by Hans-Gert Pöttering, leader of the EPP-ED Group at the European Parliament, during an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Monday. The CDU elected member named a series of possible candidates from his political family: - Wolfgang Schüssel, Jean-Claude Juncker, Jean-Luc Dehaene, and also European Commissioner Chris Patten. And Guy Verhofstadt ? "I can really not imagine him in that post", Mr Pöttering admitted, saying: "Apart from the fact that the Liberals will not be the strongest group at the European Parliament, I do not see what his contribution has been to keep all Europeans united. I shall simply remind you of the four-way meeting on EU security policy, a source of division, and organised with France, Luxembourg and Germany". On the sujbect of his own ambitions, Mr Pöttering said he will again be a candidate for the presidency of the EPP-ED Group but, to the question of whether he would like to be president of the European Parliament, he admitted: "This would no doubt be somewhat logical. The current president of the Parliament, Pat Cox, was president of the Liberals. It is a smaller group. Why then, should the president of the largest group not have this prospect also?".