Brussels, 18/06/2004 (Agence Europe) - It was not easy to decide who would be president when there were only 15 members. With twenty-five, it seems to have become even more complicated, even by qualified majority. On Thursday evening during his first appearance to the press, the President of the European Council, Berie Ahern of Ireland, hinted that Friday would be a long day, and, on Friday evening as we prepared to go to press, there was nothing to point to talks coming to an end. Discussions had been interrupted on Friday morning to speed up adoption of the European Council conclusions and then again later on to resume negotiations on the Constitution (see other article).
President Ahern simply pointed out on Thursday evening that no one candidate stood out for now from among the contenders. He went on to add that he was unable to put any name up for vote, that the list was known to all and that he saw no new candidates. On Friday evening, the situation has hardly changed. Only the rumours going round have changed the composition of the small band of four contenders claimed to be best placed for succeeding President Romano Prodi. Although during Thursday evening there was much talk of Guy Verhofstadt, who is largely backed by France and Germany, other names had since been put forward including Jean-Claude Juncker (presented to the summit by Silvio Berlusconi who took part at the EPP Summit), Chris Patten, Michel Barnier, Joschka Fischer, Peter Sutherland (former Irish European Commissioner and former Director General of GATT), Javier Solana, Pat Cox, Wolfgang Schüssel, Antonio Vitorino, José Durao Barroso, and Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
Although Jean-Claude Juncker restated he was not interested in the post, others like the president of the European Parliament, Pat Cox, did not deny that they were available if the Heads of State should want them (see p.10). It was obvious that the difficulty lay in the fact that the Heads of State did not seem resolved to find someone who was able to please both those in favour of strong European integration and those against. In this context, the arrogance of a number of large countries rapidly irritated the smaller countries and, from Thursday evening on, old quarrels rose up again. There was bickering and even clashes, mainly between Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair, which swiftly led a number of observers to describe the atmosphere as "out of control". On Friday morning, the Finnish President, Tarja Halonen, did not hesitate to tell the press: "This kind of evening will leave a definite mark. But we are all professionals. So we must keep our hope up".