Brussels - European Union leaders moved closer to a deal on appointing the bloc's new top officials Thursday after British premier Gordon Brown dropped his long-held support for Tony Blair in favour of Catherine Ashton as EU foreign policy director. "This is the breakthrough," Martin Schulz, the head of the socialist grouping in the European Parliament, said after talks with leaders, including Brown and Spain's Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
The decision could clear the way for EU leaders to pick the first-ever full-time president of the bloc, with Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy seen as the front runner ahead of his Dutch counterpart, Jan Peter Balkenende.
Ahead of the extraordinary EU summit in Brussels, diplomats said that Brown had emerged as the main obstacle to a deal because he insisted that he wanted Blair to be given the job of EU president, despite heated opposition from other member states.
But at a meeting of socialist leaders immediately before the summit, Brown dropped that demand, instead insisting that Ashton, who is currently the EU's trade commissioner, be given the post of head of EU foreign policy.
"As it became clearer that the chances of a Blair presidency, for a number of good reasons, were declining, the prime minister made a decisive intervention ... to ensure that the high representative is going to be proposed by the (socialist group) and that it will be a British person," Brown's spokesman, Simon Lewis, said.
"What has been concluded ... was that the preferred candidate would be an existing commissioner and a woman, and that's Cathy Ashton," Lewis said.
An economist and Labour politician, the 53-year-old baroness has led trade negotiations with world powers such as China and Russia in her latest role as trade commissioner.
Sweden, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, called the extra summit on Thursday to seek 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.
