Ask a minister in a European Union government what post their country hopes to get in the next European Commission, and the response is the same every time - something important to do with the economy.  Well, you can’t blame people for not hurrying to step into the shoes of Leonard Orban, the Romanian commissioner for multilingualism.

On the other hand, there aren’t enough top economic jobs for Commission president José Manuel Barroso to satisfy everyone.  Truth to tell, the Commission looks too big with 27 members.  But that’s the way it is, and that’s the way it will stay under the EU’s Lisbon treaty.  A guaranteed seat on the Commission seems a simple, visible way of making a country’s citizens feel connected to the EU.

The main four economic portfolios in Barroso’s outgoing Commission have been - in no particular order - competition, the internal market, trade, and economic and monetary affairs.  These have been occupied by the Netherlands, Ireland, Britain and Spain respectively.  By contrast, France has held two lesser posts (first transport, then justice, freedom and security), and Germany has dropped almost completely out of sight in the post of enterprise and industry.

As Barroso puts together his new team, France and Germany are in the hunt for really big jobs and feel no doubt that they deserve them because of their relatively diminished status in the outgoing Commission.  The French and Germans want to play a much more direct role in shaping the EU’s economic and financial policies as the EU struggles to emerge from recession, rewrites its rules on financial regulation and defends its industries in world markets.  France is said to desire the internal market job on the Commission, and Germany would like something equally prominent.

All this is causing some nervousness in Britain and a few like-minded countries that the next Commission will be less free market-oriented than its predecessor.  In response I would make two points.  First, this is the spirit of the age - you can expect nothing less after the recent near-meltdown of the western world’s financial system and the associated regulatory failures.

But secondly, it just does not follow that to give a top economic dossier to France or Germany means that the Commission will be wrenched in the direction of some manically illiberal étatisme and fiendishly pro-Volkswagen industrial policy.  To take one excellent example, Pascal Lamy, the Frenchman who served as trade commissioner from 1999 to 2004, was a robust defender of free trade and now is head of the World Trade Organisation.  The same would be true if the next French commissioner were someone like Christine Lagarde, who at present is President Nicolas Sarkozy’s finance minister (she is still a possible choice, some think, even though it looks as if Sarkozy is going for Michel Barnier).

EU commissioners, at their best, are like US Supreme Court justices.  When a president picks a judge to sit on America’s highest court, everyone’s first thought is, “Here we go, a blatant political appointment designed to push the Court in a certain ideological direction”.  Then, more often than not, the nominee causes a surprise by putting the court’s interests first and acting independently.  So it can be at the Commission, where the institutional culture of independence from political pressure is stronger than many on the outside assume.

A couple of months ago, some European Union policymakers talked despairingly of how 2009 risked turning out to be “a wasted year”.  Now the EU is on a roll.  The impasse over José Manuel Barroso’s reappointment as European Commission president was removed last month when the European parliament stopped playing games and renewed his term of office.

And all of a sudden, it looks as if “a decade of deadening debate over the European Union’s institutional shape” - as British foreign secretary David Miliband puts it in today’s FT - will soon come to an end, after Ireland’s referendum on the Lisbon treaty produced a massive majority in favour.  It may not be long before the EU has its first full-time president, a new head of foreign policy and a new Commission with a five-year mandate serving under Barroso.

So is all rosy in the European garden?  Not quite.  The principal problem, as it has been for the past two years, is the financial crisis.  Time and time again, as I peek into the future, I find myself disturbed by the terrible condition of Europe’s public finances and the strains that this will put on the eurozone’s unity.

In a newly published report, economists at Barclays Capital look at the evolution of the eurozone’s public debt-to-gross domestic product ratio up to the middle of the next decade.  In one scenario, which assumes an annual fiscal adjustment of 2 per cent of GDP, 4 per cent inflation and 3 per cent economic growth, the eurozone’s average debt would be 65 per cent in 2016.  That is not bad (though it’s above the 60 per cent threshold set for new entrants into the eurozone).

But just look at the differences between the area’s member-states.  The German debt would be 40 per cent of GDP, the Dutch debt 37 per cent, the Finnish debt 12 per cent.  But the Greek debt would be 150 per cent, the Irish debt 126 per cent and the Portuguese debt 89 per cent.  In footballing terms, this would be like Barcelona and Chelsea playing in the same league as Atromitos Athens and the Tralee Dynamos.

This scenario, by the way, is not Barclays Capital’s “base case”, which is more pessimistic, estimating average eurozone debt at 90 per cent of GDP in 2016.  But the same enormous divergence between, say, Germany and Greece is evident: German debt would be 64 per cent, Greek debt 171 per cent.

With such bleak forecasts, it is entirely understandable that German policymakers dislike proposals for issuing common eurozone bonds.  But the financial crisis is testing to the limit the eurozone’s ability to conduct a properly co-ordinated fiscal policy.  When interest rates start going up again, as they will, this will present a far bigger challenge for the EU than getting Barroso reappointed or passing the Lisbon treaty.

Now that José Manuel Barroso is safely re-installed as European Commission president for the next five years, it would be tempting to think that - from an institutional point of view, at least - all is well in Brussels.  Tempting, but wrong.

Once again, it is our old friend the Lisbon treaty that is the problem.  On October 2 Irish voters, who rejected the treaty in a referendum in June 2008, will have the chance to reverse their verdict.  Opinion polls indicate that the Yes camp will win this time.  But there is an unmistakeable air of nervousness at the European Union’s headquarters that the polls may not be a reliable guide to the eventual outcome.

The fundamental problem is Ireland’s economic collapse over the past 12 months, which has plunged the government’s popularity ratings to unprecedented depths.  The public mood is as sour as a pint of stale Guinness.  In this climate, anti-Lisbon campaigners are finding some voters receptive to the argument that, since pro-Lisbon politicians ruined the economy, why should they be trusted when they say the treaty is good for Ireland?

But the Irish referendum is not the only cloud on the EU’s horizon.  For even if Ireland votes Yes, there remain considerable doubts over when Václav Klaus, the Czech president, will append his signature to the Lisbon treaty, allowing it to take force.  Fears are growing in Brussels that Klaus intends to find an excuse to delay signing as long as possible - certainly, until some time in the first half of next year.

The EU will then face its ultimate nightmare - that the Lisbon treaty will not have been ratified by the time that the UK holds its next general election, due by June.  The rampantly anti-Lisbon Conservative party is widely expected to win the election, and Tory leaders have made clear that, if Lisbon is unratified when they take power, they will call a referendum on the treaty.  All the evidence suggests the British would vote No.

If events take this course, it will poison the atmosphere in the EU and make it even harder than it is now to defend all the good things about the 27-nation bloc, such as the single European market and the successful knitting together of western and eastern Europe.  Troubling times, indeed.

In the end, it was all so easy.  A few minutes ago, José Manuel Barroso won approval for a second term as European Commission president, after a vote in the European Parliament that went 382 in his favour and 219 against, with 117 abstentions.

Barroso thus comfortably cleared the threshold of 369 votes - that is, more than half of the 736-seat parliament - that he needed in order to remove any doubts about his political authority over the next five years.  No wonder he was wreathed in smiles as he accepted a congratulatory bouquet of flowers from Cecilia Malmström, Sweden’s European affairs minister.

Under the terms of the European Union’s Nice treaty, Barroso required only a simple majority for reappointment.  That was scarcely in question, given that he didn’t face a rival candidate.  But if his tally had fallen substantially below 369, there would have been strong pressure for him to undergo another vote, because the EU’s Lisbon treaty - which EU leaders hope will come into force next year - requires the nominee to win an absolute majority.

The lingering threat of another vote would surely have weakened Barroso and complicated his task of selecting his next Commission.  It would also have damaged the EU’s image among the general European public, and it would no doubt have caused derision in certain capitals beyond the EU’s eastern frontier.

But all that no longer matters.  The real question now is how Barroso intends to capitalise on his success.  Immediately after the vote, he told MEPs that he would devote his second term to building “a Europe of solidarity and freedom”.

Like a lot of what Barroso says, this can mean everything and nothing.  It is a campaign slogan, designed to hoover up as many votes as possible from the left, the centre and the right, rather than a serious policy programme.  In his recent speeches, there hasn’t been much more detail - although, to be fair, he is promising to reorganise Commission portfolios so that there will be three new posts covering fundamental rights rights and civil liberties, internal affairs and migration, and climate change.

For the moment, Barroso has every right to celebrate his victory.  But in the coming weeks we will need to see concrete ideas from him on how he proposes to protect and strengthen the EU’s single market, persuade national governments not to undermine the common European interest, and convince European citizens of the EU’s continuing relevance to their lives.

When does No mean Yes - or maybe?  I’m not venturing here into the treacherous territory of date rape law, but rather thinking of what politicians say when they’re asked if they want to be the European Union’s first permanent president.

Take Felipe González, Spain’s socialist prime minister from 1982 to 1996.  Rumours have swirled around Brussels for months that González is interested in the job and that President Nicolas Sarkozy of France would be pleased to see him get it.  González’s fellow Spaniard, Javier Solana, who is the EU’s foreign policy high representative, is on record as saying last June that he believes the ex-premier “has the energy and the capacity for the job”.

So I feel it’s my duty to report that John Thornhill, a Financial Times colleague, took González to one side at a conference in Italy last weekend and put the $64,000 question to him.  Here is what the great man replied: “Some people are talking about myself, and I have said that I will not be a candidate.  This means that I have to be extremely careful about talking about other candidates, whether it is to support them or not.  Some people could criticise me for making my views public when I’m not going to be a candidate.”

González’s reply looks superficially like a No.  In fact, to say that you’re not a candidate isn’t the same thing at all as saying that you will never accept the job under any circumstances.

As it happens, I think there is one very good reason why González would be right to think twice before taking on this particular job.  The permanent EU presidency is set to come into operation in January, if Irish voters approve the EU’s Lisbon reform treaty in a referendum next month and if Václav Klaus and Lech Kaczynski, the recalcitrant Czech and Polish presidents, can be persuaded to sign the document.

But the establishment of the permanent presidency will not mean the abolition of the existing EU system, under which every country holds the union’s rotating presidency for six months at a time.  All EU member-states love their six months in the spotlight, and many have no intention of stepping to one side in order to let the EU’s first permanent president grab all the attention.

And guess what?  The country that will hold the rotating presidency from January 1 to June 30, 2010 - just when the permanent presidency is to be launched - is none other than Spain.  The Spanish government has absolutely no intention of meekly vanishing into the shadows to let the EU’s first permanent president steal the show.

Perhaps national pride would induce a more accommodating attitude from Spain, if González were picked for the job.  But I wouldn’t bet on it - and from the sound of things, nor would Felipe.

Like much public life in the European Union, José Manuel Barroso’s battle to win reappointment as European Commission president is a battle of low politics dressed up in high ideals.  Barroso will be denied a second five-year term unless he secures the approval of the European Parliament, where a vote on his future should have taken place in July but was postponed until mid-September.  Now the moment of truth is close.  What can Barroso say and do to win over his socialist, Green and liberal critics?

One clue came in a speech, almost entirely ignored by the media, that Barroso delivered last week at a Barcelona business school.  Here he all but set out his policy programme for the next five years.  The speech’s most important passage read as follows: “The recent recovery spots are fragile and do not allow for any complacency.  In any case, it is clear that global growth will not return to pre-crisis levels for some time - if at all.  Those growth rates - and the economic model behind them - were simply not sustainable.”

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.  Barroso’s opponents will not be alone in asking whether the Commission president did not in fact spend much of his first term promoting the very same growth model, based on financial market innovation, deregulation and cheap capital, that he now says was unsustainable.  Still, as he points out, “the failure to predict and head off the crisis was a collective failure”, with economists, bankers, regulators, supervisors and politicians all sharing responsibility.

What model should the EU embrace in the future?  Barroso lists seven “new sources of growth”: a) open global markets and investment regimes; b) maximising the potential of the EU’s single market; c) building networks such as high-speed broadband and energy interconnections; d) innovation policies, including a new emphasis on government procurement and intellectual property strategy; e) improving employees’ skills so that they can switch from declining industries to new sectors; f) developing a low-carbon economy; and g) improving the quality of public expenditure.

It all sounds sensible enough.  A Commission president is not an economic policy tsar for Europe.  But he or she can offer a vision, speaking up for the EU’s collective interest when national leaders find it inconvenient to do so.  Barroso, in his speech, was consciously selecting policy areas where he knows he could make a difference by stating the case for common European action.

Whether it will be enough to appease his parliamentary critics is another matter.

Is the “Stop Barroso” campaign finally running out of steam?  Leaders of the main political groups in the European Parliament have pencilled in September 16 as the day when they will hold a vote on whether to confirm José Manuel Barroso for a second five-year term as European Commission president.

If this arrangement holds, then it will mark a defeat for the anti-Barroso forces who wanted to delay the vote until after Ireland held its October 2 referendum on the European Union’s Lisbon treaty.  They were striving to create a situation in which (assuming the Irish voted Yes) the EU would simultaneously choose its first full-time president, the bloc’s new foreign policy high representative and the Commission president.  In such circumstances, they hoped, Barroso would no longer be a shoo-in to run the Commission.  Other candidates would emerge.  Haggling would ensue.  It would (they dreamed) be adeus, José Manuel.

This scenario now looks rather less likely.  It reflects two factors.  First, all 27 EU governments support Barroso.  There neither is nor has been any other publicly named candidate for the Commission presidency.  Secondly, it has been crystal-clear throughout this unedifying saga that certain MEPs have been undermining Barroso purely for the purpose of securing influence over his future Commission and its policies as well as jobs and political power for themselves.

It is, of course, a fundamental human right of every MEP to make himself or herself look foolish in the public eye.  But perhaps it’s time now to get back to the real business of stabilising Europe’s financial sector and hauling the economy out of recession?

What should be the top five priorities of the next European Commission?

1) Top of my list is the defence, and if possible the strengthening, of the single European market.  This is the European Union’s bedrock achievement.  It secures prosperity for its citizens, and it underpins the EU’s collective weight in the world.  Without the single market, the EU would lose not merely its cohesion but its very reason for existence.  The single market is under strain at present because of the emergency measures taken over the past year to prop up Europe’s banking system.  These have, in effect, suspended the EU’s state aid rules in this sector.  The Commission will need to be tough in making sure that EU governments do not manipulate the rules as the emergency measures are gradually withdrawn.  Meanwhile, it should continue to press the case for integrating and liberalising the EU’s service sector, which accounts for two-thirds of all EU economic activity.

2) In second place is the need to propose useful reforms to the EU’s system of financial market regulation.  I stress “useful”, because the legislative initiatives put forward so far range from very good to mediocre.  The first category includes the creation of a EU-wide systemic risk-monitoring agency and new EU supervisory authorities.  The second category includes the proposals for clamping down on hedge funds and private equity.  These had little or nothing to do with the causes of the financial crisis.  The Commission is understandably under populist political pressures to take aim at easy targets, but it needs to be more courageous and redraft its proposals.

3) Third is a sharper definition of the Commission’s climate change and energy security policies.  Under José Manuel Barroso’s leadership, the Commission has done a good job of raising the profile of these areas.  But in my view its effectiveness has been diminished by having three separate commissioners for energy, the environment and transport.  Transport policy, in particular, is considerably less “green” and less ambitious than the EU’s rhetoric implies.  The idea of appointing a “super-commissioner” for energy and climate change has been around for quite a while in Brussels.  Now is the time to put it into practice.

4) Fourth is the task of ensuring that the Commission president and the EU’s foreign policy high representative - not to mention the EU’s first full-time president - do not tread on each other’s toes and make a mess of the EU’s relations with the outside world.  I am assuming here that the Lisbon treaty will come into effect next year.  Under the treaty’s terms, the next foreign policy chief, replacing Javier Solana of Spain, will double up as Commission vice-president.  The scope for collisions with the Commission president is obvious.  Another thing that needs sorting out is whether the foreign policy job will be purely diplomatic and political in nature, or whether it will have influence over areas such as humanitarian aid, enlargement and trade.  Up to now, these have been the preserve of different commissioners, but they are clearly intimately linked with the conduct of EU foreign policy.

5) Fifth and finally - but this is just a baffled observer’s thought - it might be a good idea for the Commission to get itself a president for the next five years.  Is anyone in the European Parliament listening?