So, in my mind it is essential that the President of the Council be an unassuming personality, not chosen for their great oratory, media savvy and their ability and willingness to strut the globe representing the EU. That's what the HRCFSP is about, and that will be a separate job. The Council President has to be someone who has the ability to facilitate coalition building within the council and broker agreements. Blair is not the person for this, he has shown that in spades through ten years of experience on the Council as PM, and for six months while he held the rotating presidency. Taking a cue from redstar's latest diary, I'd say that the Council President should be a former Foreign Minister of a mid-sized country. Also note that the Council will be writing the job description this year, before filling the position, and that the Devil is in the details of how the council will define the job of its President.

France's prima donna President has a decidedly negative effect on EU governance at the moment. Not only does he hijack existing initiatives to the greater glory of Sarko only to drop them when the photo-op has been obtained, but he also has fostered a culture where there is a directoire of a few large (and conservative) governments hashing out EU policy with Barroso and then ramming it through the EU Council. Even mid-sized states are not happy.

EurActiv: Big member states 'backing out of EU', warns Hungary FM (27 April 2009 )

Balázs, who is a former EU commissioner, said that large member states were looking to "strengthen" the role of other institutions as alternative decision-making fora.

The foreign minister said Germany had been working "to seize economic institutions and to strengthen the G20" since 2007.

In line with views recently expressed by Belgian Foreign Minister Karel de Gucht (EurActiv 21/04/09), he argued that the aim of such actions was to leave smaller EU member states "behind", with larger members preferring to deal with states that have "similar influence and weight".

and EU increasingly governed by the few, Belgian FM warns (21 April 2009)

With just a year to go until the Belgian EU Presidency, the country's foreign minister denounced the functioning of the Union, which he said is increasingly governed by an "executive board of big countries".

Speaking on Monday (20 April) at the opening of an annual diplomatic conference in Brussels, Karel de Gucht said Belgium would make full use of its presidency in the second half of 2010 to re-establish the EU institutional balance, which he said was in "danger".

"It is absolutely unacceptable that small groups of member states put in danger the normal institutional process," de Gucht said. "Belgium has the duty of trying as quickly as possible to re-establish the institutional balance."