Stockholm/Berlin- The search for the first president of the European Union was set to dominate behind-the-scenes talks in Berlin on Monday as EU leaders gathered to commemorate the fall of the Iron Curtain. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was set to host other EU power brokers, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown at a dinner, giving them a rare chance to discuss names face to face.
Officials from Sweden, the current holder of the EU's rotating presidency, insisted Monday that the question of names was not on the agenda in Berlin, but analysts said that leaders were all but certain to discuss the issue in private.
The EU's Lisbon Treaty, which creates the posts of president and foreign policy director, is expected to come into force on December 1. National leaders are currently debating who should get the jobs.
"I have reached a few, but have to talk to 26 heads of state and government," said Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, who is coordinating the negotiations, before travelling to Berlin.
"When I have phoned them all, I will set a date for a summit" to formally nominate the new leaders, he told broadcaster SVT's current affairs programme Agenda.
Merkel, Brown, Reinfeldt and Sarkozy are expected to be kingmakers in the double debate on who should become the EU's president and high representative - a debate complicated by the need to balance the demands of 27 EU members.
"The two (positions) are linked: everyone understands that we need to balance big and small (countries), right and left, north and south," Reinfeldt said.
According to diplomats in Brussels, the prime ministers of Belgium and the Netherlands, Herman Van Rompuy and Jan Peter Balkenende, are front-runners to claim the post of EU president.
Britain's former premier Tony Blair and Latvia's former president Vaira Vike-Freiberga have also been linked with the top job, but are thought unlikely to make the running.
Britain's foreign minister David Miliband is cited by diplomats as the man most mentioned in connection with the high representative's post, but he has repeatedly denied interest in the role.
Austrian daily Der Standard reported on Monday that Miliband had refused an offer of the job from the EU's top socialist, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, one of the key negotiators on the issue.
Italy's former foreign minister, Massimo D'Alema, is also mentioned, although formerly Communist member states in Central and Eastern Europe say that his ties to Italy's Communist party count against him.
"I will start with a blank piece of paper and I will ask the elected governments what they think and take it from there ... It is not always certain that those mentioned in the speculation will be the final ones on my blank piece of paper," Reinfeldt said.
