Brussels - European Union socialist leaders Thursday proposed Britain's Catherine Ashton as their choice for the post of EU foreign policy chief, top officials at a summit in Brussels said. The decision could clear the way for EU leaders to pick Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy for the other high-profile position up for grabs, the first-ever full-time president of the bloc.
Britain had hitherto been seen as one of the main stumbling-blocks to a deal by insisting on the candidacy of Tony Blair as president.
"This is the breakthrough," Martin Schulz, the head of the socialist grouping in the European Parliament, said after talks with national leaders including Britain's Gordon Brown and Spain's Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
Schulz later confirmed that Brown had dropped Blair's candidacy.
An economist and Labour politician, the 53-year-old baroness currently acts as the bloc's trade commissioner, a position that sees her lead trade negotiations with world powers such as China and Russia.
Sweden, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, called the extra summit on Thursday to try and reach agreement on the posts of president and foreign-policy director of the council of EU states.
The two jobs were created by the Lisbon Treaty, which is set to come into force on December 1, to give the EU a higher profile on the world stage.
Ahead of the summit, Van Rompuy emerged as the front runner in the race to become president, with the Belgian media speculating about likely scenarios were he to leave his current job.
Van Rompuy's unofficial candidacy was strengthened Wednesday when German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she planned to strike a deal on names with the EU's other powerbroker, French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Germany and France are both believed to be in favour of a candidate from a smaller member state. And Van Rompuy has won favours in Paris and Berlin by supporting German and French opposition to Turkey becoming an EU member.
While Germany has not yet explicitly backed any candidate, its ambassador to Belgium, Reinhard Bettzuege, was quoted by Belgian paper De Morgen as saying Germany favoured Van Rompuy, a comment that was subsequently denied in Berlin.
At a summit last month, conservative and socialist leaders struck a deal whereby the EU council president should be picked from the political centre-right and the foreign policy chief from the centre- left.
The third post up for grabs at Thursday evening's summit is that of secretary general of the council, a largely bureaucratic but potentially influential position.
