Speculation Grows Over Blair's Ambitions for EU President
Even before the Lisbon Treaty was signed, speculation was rife as to who would be the first European president as proposed in the new document. Now it is signed and sealed, one man heads the list of potential candidates. The role, outlined in the treaty signed by the 27 member states at the end of last year, will replace the current system whereby each country assumes the rotating presidency for six months. The job, a two-and-a-half-year term, will be up for grabs in 2009 if the bloc's 27 member states can keep to their timetable and individually ratify the treaty over the next year. It now appears that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has taken an early lead in the speculative stakes after he jetted into Paris for talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy at a meeting of the right-wing Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party in Paris on Saturday.
Sarkozy has made no secret of his admiration for Blair and was the first and most vocal advocate of his potential presidency. "He is a very remarkable man. He is the most European of Britons ... it would be intelligent to think of him," Sarkozy said last year.
Note EU-Digest: Let us hope the EU will be able to have a universal vote with several candidates on who they want to have as their President and that we do not get a President shoved into our shoes. The whole of the EU needs to make the choice for a President not Mr. Sarkozy.
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