The Swedish Prime Minster Fredrik Reinfeldt has been tasked (because Sweden curently runs the EU Presidency) with leading negotiations to appoint the bloc's first-ever permanent president ahead of a summit on November 19. And officials say that Reinfeldt and his staff have been rarely off the phone in recent days as they have called every national leader in the EU to ask who their choice would be. "Every one of the 27 member states should be able to have their say ... Just to reach all the presidents and prime ministers in 26 countries is a task, I can tell you," a weary-looking Reinfeldt said this week.
For much of this week, Reinfeldt has been cloistered in his office above the quays of Stockholm, phoning colleague after colleague while his aides called around Europe's capitals to set up more talks. "When you actually speak with all 26 colleagues you have more names than jobs to offer," Reinfeldt lamented. According to EU sources, the hours of calls produced "about 10 names" for each of the top posts.
Finding a way to reduce those lists to just two or three names before the summit looks likely to take a lot more telephone time. "We have the main balance between left and right in politics, but as you know, that's not the only balance we're talking about - we talk about small, medium and big member states, we talk about north and south, west and east, we talk about gender issues," Reinfeldt said. Britain is openly 'pushing' for Tony Blair. Latvia is lobbying on behalf of Vaira Vike-Freiberga, while Italy is backing Massimo D'Alema.
But beyond that circle, governments have maintained a stony silence on the key question of which names are on the list. "We can't make any statements on this issue -there are some ideas in (our capital), but there is a total embargo on that information," one diplomat from a small Eastern European state said on Thursday. Most candidates are reluctant to reveal themselves because to make a formal bid without overwhelming support would mean "sending the signal to your people that I'm on the way to another job but on Monday I'm back again and I didn't get it but I still love you," Reinfeldt said.
The pressure from the media to publish the list is now so great that the Swedish premier might even be looking forward to spending the next few days alone in his office with a hot telephone. But with just days to go before Thursday's showdown, and key events such as a summit with Russia set to take up much of his available time, he must be wondering how far telephone democracy will take him -and how much will have to be left to the summit itself. "I could foresee that I might need to work with it until we arrive at our council (summit) dinner," he said.
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