NOT WELL KNOWN; BUT DON'T UNDERESTIMATE VON ROMPUY OR ASHTON

           European Union leaders have named Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy and Britain's Catherine Ashton as EU president and foreign policy chief. Such a deal is a vote for consensus builders over big-name personalities and means that while European decision-making may become more streamlined, the EU will still struggle to punch its weight in international diplomacy.

          Van Rompuy, virtually unknown on the world stage, is regarded as a sharp and efficient operator in his home country. He has been prime minister for only a year, but in that time has won high praise for bringing Belgium's long-divided Flemish and French-speaking communities closer together. In backing him for president of the EU Council, a move largely driven by France and Germany, EU leaders are asking Van Rompuy, a 62-year-old consummate politician fond of writing Haiku poems, to serve as a business-like chairman of the union.

           "It's not a glamour team," an EU diplomat said. He can be expected to run a tight, well-organised agenda, and his behind-the-scenes style should help find consensus among the EU's 27 sometimes fractious states.

EFFICIENCY WINS OVER BIG NAME 

           The choice of Ashton to serve as high representative for foreign affairs is also a nod towards understated efficiency rather than the influence of a high-profile, big-name diplomat. Ashton, who has spent the past year serving as the EU's trade commissioner, has relatively little experience in foreign affairs. But she picked up her trade brief quickly and has earned a reputation as being an astute negotiator. "It is not a bad choice," said Hugo Brady, an analyst at the Centre for European Reform think tank, referring to the pairing. "Ashton does not have very strong foreign policy credentials, but she is a very capable person," he said.
 KISSINGER VERSUS ERASMUS

          From the outside, however, particularly from the point of view of Washington, Beijing or New Delhi, the EU's choices are likely to raise some question marks. If U.S. President Barack Obama or Chinese President Hu Jintao wants to "speak to Europe", they will now be expected to call Van Rompuy or Ashton. Instead Jose Manuel Barroso is likely to be a more high-profile touchstone for foreign leaders. To that extent, the choices of Ashton and Van Rompuy seem to go against one concept of the jobs, which was to increase the bloc's global clout as well as streamlining decision-making. But with 27 countries in the union, what is needed before the EU can become a major player in world affairs is a set of common foreign and security policy objectives.

          To get those, negotiation, debate and compromise are needed first. Van Rompuy and Ashton, 53, will be instrumental in trying to achieve that, and the EU's leaders will know they have two skilled and efficient politicians working on the issues.

SISTERS ARE DOING IT FOR THEMSELVES

 It can be expected that the US Democrat Secretary of State Hilary Clinton will find it very easy to strike up a warm working relationship with the Labour Party's Cathy Ashton with both sharing similar views on a multitude of subjects.

ASHTON THE QUIET FIXER

           "(Ashton)'s never been a foreign secretary. However, she has been in the international trade business for quite some time and has quite of lot of experience in multilateral affairs," said Antonio Missiroli of the European Policy Centre. In her time as trade commissioner, Ashton has been key in bringing the United States and India together to kickstart the Doha round of world trade talks. She has also brokered the EU's largest foreign trade agreement, a 100 billion euro ($150 billion) pact with South Korea, and solved two of the EU's most intractable trade disputes. With international diplomacy closely tied to trade, and the EU constituting the world's largest economic trading zone, Ashton appears to be a choice that reflects the EU's desire to tie its economic strength closely to diplomatic influence.

In part of the quid pro quo of these selections FRANCE’S DE BOISSEU GETS COUNCIL SECRETARIAT and the German candidate (yet to selected by Germany) for the European Central Bank is now a shoe-in

EU STILL AT NOMINATIONS IMPASSE AHEAD OF THURSDAY SUMMIT

A summit this week to appoint an EU president and foreign affairs chief looks set to run over schedule with no clear candidates agreed despite long consultations, EU officials said on Tuesday.

Sweden has called a summit in Brussels on Thursday to decide who fills the jobs. But midway through a second round of discussions with EU leaders, no unanimous names have emerged. Herman Van Rompuy is the frontrunner to become president, but diplomats say no agreement has been reached on the foreign policy job and some countries want a more established statesmen than Van Rompuy as president. "There is still no clear candidate for either job," an EU diplomat with knowledge of the negotiations said.

Fredrik Reinfeldt had hoped unanimous candidates for both jobs would emerge from talks with leaders and would be confirmed at a dinner. The summit now looks likely to run into the early hours of Friday and beyond.

FRIDAY BREAKFAST ORDERED  

Sweden has even taken the precaution of ordering breakfast for the heads of state and government attending the summit in case the dinner ends without a result, diplomats say. "If there is no agreement -and currently many things seem to be blocked- then it must continue on Friday or probably it will have to be postponed," Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger told reporters on Monday.

At least six names have repeatedly been mentioned by diplomats and analysts for the president's job, and a similar number for the role of high representative, but the list seems to grow rather than shorten. The EU is expected to opt for a centre-right president and a centre-left foreign affairs chief. There is no firm favourite for the latter role, but Italians Massimo D'Alema and Giuliano Amato are increasingly mentioned as candidates. Despite calls for a women to have one of the top jobs, no women are thought to be among the front-runners.

BRITAIN FACES BEING SIDELINED

 EU diplomats say Britain is still pushing for Tony Blair to be president but many other states are against. Britain's insistence on Blair is creating an impasse, the diplomat familiar with the process said, and Britain could find itself sidelined if the decision ultimately went to a vote. "Any decision without the UK's backing would not be good PR for the EU, but the Swedes, France, Germany and others may be willing to go for a vote without the British," he said.

FRANCE AND GERMANY SEEM FURTHER APART THAN EVER

From a source in Brussels

              Throughout the Cold War, Germany was the steadfast trans-Atlantic ally and France the perpetual sceptic. Paris snubbed NATO, booted allied soldiers off its soil and sought a privileged relationship with Moscow. Then one night the Berlin Wall fell _and 20 years later, the roles subtly have shifted. Nicolas Sarkozy is seeking to be a NATO stalwart, bringing his country back into the alliance's military command.

              As a result, France received two NATO command posts. At the same time, Angela Merkel while reaching out to the United States is pursuing closer ties with Russia that have left Washington unsettled. This evolution in France and Germany's relationships with the Cold War superpowers is altering the shape of their own relationship, which both countries long considered the «motor» of the EU. Sarkozy and Merkel will send yet another powerful sign of their countries' friendship Wednesday at the Arc de Triomphe, when for the first time French and German leaders jointly mark the anniversary of the Nov. 11 armistice that ended World War One.

              Symbols aside, as much as Sarkozy and Merkel might like to emphasize the privileged nature of the Franco-German couple, ties between the countries are no longer what they used to be _and pushing the restart button over and over again does not guarantee a smooth ride. «Both sides' sense of the relationship has been lost,» said Josef Janning, senior director of the Bertelsmann Foundation. The two countries used to be at «the core of bargaining» in the EU, but «currently, nobody really knows what the purpose» of the relationship is, Janning said. Germany and France spent the decades after World War II in a long, painful period of «reconciliation» as Germany atoned for the Holocaust and its occupation of France.

GERMANY LOOKS EAST  

              After the Berlin Wall came down, Germany found it had to atone yet again, this time with Poland and Russia, both of which suffered greatly under Nazi invasions. Despite deep historical wariness all around, Poland and Russia also offered tremendous economic and even diplomatic opportunities for Germany to expand its influence eastward and thereby reduced Berlin's need to rely only on Paris as its major partner on the continent.

LAPSUS LINGUAE?

              In her first speech Wednesday to the German parliament since winning a second term as chancellor, Merkel said she wanted to pursue a broad security dialogue with Russia. She did not mention France or the Franco-German relationship in the speech. Germany's determination to make its relationship with Russia a top priority took off under Merkel's predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder, who made a strategic decision to tether his nation firmly to Russia's immense energy wealth. Unlike Schroeder, Merkel has avoided fawning on Russia: She has moved to improve relations with Poland and has pledged to stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States in Afghanistan. But she has continued to deepen ties with Moscow through business and diplomatic initiatives.

BERLIN IGNORES PARIS COURTSHIP

              Conscious of its slipping profile in Germany, the French government in recent months has multiplied efforts to revive the relationship. The courtship includes high-profile political gestures, as well as numerous conferences devoted to the French-German relationship. In July, a new Franco-German military brigade marched down the Champs-Elysees on Bastille Day with Sarkozy looking on. The French Foreign Ministry on Monday spearheaded a huge light show and concert on the Place de la Concorde, celebrations billed as a «present» to the German people on the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's fall. And on Wednesday, Merkel joins Sarkozy to commemorate the 91st anniversary of the armistice. In the long run, however, in the absence of concrete steps to reassert joint French-German leadership in Europe, these gestures may not have great meaning. «If you kiss,» Janning said, «it doesn't mean that much because it is part of the in and out of global diplomacy.»

SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY?

   While France loves the big gestures, the Germans are in a pragmatic mood these days, French-German specialists say. It shows in some of the business deals Germany has struck in recent months. Earlier this year, German industrial conglomerate giant Siemens pulled out of a nuclear power plant joint venture with France's Areva and then turned around to engage in talks on forming a nuclear energy venture with Russia's Rosatom. Siemens built the new high-speed train between Moscow and St. Petersburg for a line expected to open later this year. «The style fundamentally has changed,» Hans Stark, who chairs research into France and Germany at the French Institute for International Affairs, told a gathering of diplomats, analysts and journalists this week.