THE Spanish-born Secretary General of NATO, Mr Javier Solana Madariaga, is an ideal candidate for the presidency, but, for the second time in his career, his timing is not quite perfect.
At the end of 1995 he was the Spanish foreign minister and a favourite to take over as head of the Spanish Socialist Party from Mr Felipe Gonzalez, who had decided to step down. Only weeks before the expected announcement, the Belgian Secretary General of NATO, Mr Willy Claes, was forced to resign and a replacement had to be found in a hurry.
Mr Solana (56), who was seen by some as a stop-gap choice, stepped into Mr Claes's shoes after no other candidate met with the unanimous approval of the other members.
A lifelong pacifist, he campaigned against NATO membership, which Spain joined in 1981, but as a loyal member of the Gonzalez cabinet he was able, he said, "to combine my own views with government policy". He is a friendly but tough negotiator, an excellent linguist, and has gained the admiration of world leaders. He is now being proposed as EU president when his term in NATO still has more than a year to run and at a time when the alliance is deeply embroiled in the Kosovo crisis and in its newly enlarged structure. Once more the calendar seems to have played another cruel trick and deprived Mr Solana of the opportunity of achieving the top job.