EU: The EU should bring some transparency to how it chooses its most powerful figure, the Commission President, writes Mark Brennock, Chief Political Correspondent
The selection process - if one can so describe the political game-playing that has just led to the appointment of a European Commission President - takes place in secret. Ability to do the job well may indeed be a requirement, although it is rarely mentioned.
Instead, all sorts of requirements - some of them quite arbitrary - emerge. It is written nowhere, for example, that the Commission President must be a current or former prime minister. It appears to have become a rule because the people who make the decision are prime ministers themselves, and can't imagine that anyone who hasn't been could possibly do the job.
It was also accepted this time that it was the "turn" of the centre-right to hold the Commission Presidency, a factor strengthened by the results of the European Parliament elections which saw the European People's Party consolidate its position as the strongest grouping.
The French have a requirement of their own: That the Commission President be able to speak French, although this piece of national self-importance will hardly survive the recent enlargement which has incorporated 10 new member-states whose second language is generally English.
The French also floated a series of other conditions this time, including the notion that the new Commission President should be from a member-state that is involved in all EU policies including the euro, the Schengen common travel area and defence.
This, if accepted, would exclude politicians from 16 of the 25 member-states. The British and the Italians meanwhile don't want anyone too enthusiastic about further European integration.
None of them will state these conditions explicitly. Instead. rumours swirl around that this candidate or that is seen by the British or Italians as "too federalist", or that the French won't go for another because he or she is from a state that is not part of the euro or the Schengen travel area.
Faced with such a host of possible criteria on which someone or other could veto them, those who want the job keep their desires largely to themselves.
A prime minister will say he or she is "not a candidate", which is true of all contenders as there are no formal "candidates" in this process. Others will say they are not interested "at this stage", or that it is "not on my agenda", leaving open the possibility of it soon appearing on their agenda.
The coyness is understandable and politically necessary. Prime ministers could fatally undermine their positions at home if they signal an interest in giving up their job to go to Brussels, only to be rejected..
So this time, the long-standing front-runner, the Belgian Prime Minister Mr Guy Verhofstadt, issued a couple of statements purporting to deny interest. However it was only when Britain, Italy and others objected strongly to him that he withdrew. The British Commissioner Mr Chris Patten also pulled out after objections from France and others.
Then the name of Jose Manuel Durão Barroso was added to the list of possible contenders. The list also included the Danish Prime Minister Mr Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Austrian Prime Minister Mr Wolfgang Schuessel, former Finnish Prime Minister Mr Paavo Lipponen and Justice Commissioner Mr Antonio Vitorino. Mr Pat Cox's name was still there, while the Taoiseach continued to rule himself out but in a way that suggested he just might change his mind.
All the while France and Germany continued to hope that the denials from the Luxembourg Prime Minister Mr Jean Claude Juncker were not real. Once it became clear that Juncker meant what he said, opinion began to harden around Mr Barroso.
And so a man who was barely mentioned at the outset has become the European Union's most powerful figure. Nobody is really sure why. But we are left with the impression that many member-states are regarded as disqualified from holding the post, and that many politicians are ruled out because they hold views that do not accord with those of some powerful states.
Member-states who will try to persuade their voters to support the new constitutional treaty need to show them that the EU is an open, democratic Union of equals. They will hardly be helped by the fact that the selection of Commission President is about as transparent a process as the selection of a new Pope.
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