Across Europe, politicians of various political stripes are stamping their feet in impotent fury. José Manuel Barroso, the centre-right Portuguese leader who has served as European Commission president since 2004, seems strongly placed to secure a second five-year term. His enemies and critics would love to stop him, but all they can do is boo from the sidelines like disappointed children.

Barroso’s adversaries, especially on the left, have only themselves to blame. If they wanted to torpedo his reappointment, they should have put forward a candidate for Commission president in next month’s European Parliament elections. But petty rivalries, unseemly personal ambitions and a good deal of incoherent political tactics put paid to that. By contrast, Europe’s centre-right parties rallied behind Barroso, even if some supporters held their noses when they agreed to back him.

The task of appointing a Commission president lies with the leaders of the European Union’s 27 national governments, who, when they make their choice, are supposed to take account of the results of the latest European Parliament elections. Barroso has been busy hoovering up support over the past two years from heads of state and government such as France’s Nicolas Sarkozy (centre-right), Germany’s Angela Merkel (centre-right), the UK’s Gordon Brown (centre-left), Spain’s José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (centre-left) and quite a few others.

It’s true that some heavyweights in the pro-Barroso camp, when pressed, don’t sound especially passionate about his abilities or his record at the Commission. But when EU leaders gather in Brussels for a post-election summit next month, it is hard to see how any name other than Barroso’s will win approval. Though he has come under fire for his inadequate crisis management last September and October during the near-meltdown of Europe’s financial system, the simple truth is that, on the whole, he hasn’t caused much offence to anybody.

Except, of course, a large number of leftists, centrists, Greens and others who sit in the European Parliament. Belatedly, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the Franco-German Greens co-president, has appealed this week for a socialist-Green alliance, with others welcome to join, that would be big enough to deter EU leaders from nodding through Barroso’s reappointment.

But still the question remains: Who would the socialists prefer to run the Commission? I am in the dark – but I get the impression there’d be little point asking Martin Schulz, the German leader of the parliament’s socialist group. He simply won’t be drawn on the matter. Whether that’s because he has his eye on becoming Germany’s next member of the Commission, replacing Günter Verheugen, only time will tell.