Both Merkel and Sarkozy have recently held the presidency of course, and won't expect to do it again. Whereas i.a. Spain's, Poland's and others' leaders will have their own expectations regarding their forthcoming presidencies and thoughts about the sort of person they will wish to "share" with. No member of the European Council is going to want to hang around like a spare part during their national presidency, so that factor will surely weigh heavily on the choices of those next in line.
On another point, this article seems to take it for granted that the most important role of the president is to be the face of the EU, but I would argue that the behind-the-scenes role is more important.
Firstly, the president needs to be able to achieve consensus in the European Council. Then they need to be able to build mutually supportive relationships with the Commission president, the high representative, the foreign minister and leader of each successive six-monthly presidency, and to a lesser extent with other presidency-country ministers, Commissioners and key figures in the EP.
And what about the officials supporting the president? Look at the importance of the permanent rep in the current rotating presidency. Is the president going to have a representative in Coreper, or will the permanent reps run rings around them? Will the president have the staff to get to work in the member states' capitals, as the embassies of rotating presidencies currently do?
This sort of article is about focusing on the aspects of the job for which Blair supporters presumably believe he is best qualified. But what about the rest, is it really his thing?
And they also have to ignore the aims and hopes of a very considerable slice of the EU, both in terms of leaders and functionaries, but also of member states: the smaller states have no interest in seeing a president from a major country define the presidency for years to come as a high-profile job for big-country candidates.
You have to remember whose ideait was to put the European Council President into the Constitution and then the Lisbon Treaty. Yes, Bliar. And he was mightily displeased back then that the others, for all the reasons you name, cut back on the remit of this post compared to his original vision.
So the article is focusing on the aspects of the job Bliar wanted to create the job for in the first place. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
