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.

Read today’s analysis in the FT of the consequences of Ireland’s vote on the Lisbon treaty. Follow this link:

EU embarks on voyage of discovery after Lisbon

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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.

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.

What’s the connection between martial arts and European financial market regulation?  Answers in Bulgarian, please.  Because the most colourful member of the newly elected European Parliament’s powerful economic and monetary affairs committee is surely Slavi Binev, a Bulgarian MEP. 

Binev is a Taekwondo champion whose parliamentary website describes him, with little exaggeration, as “the most recognisable figure in the history of martial arts in Bulgaria”.  Perhaps I should add that he is also a wealthy man who belongs to Bulgaria’s ultra-nationalist Ataka party and who runs a company specialising in nightclubs, construction and finance.  He knows, shall we say, how to look after himself.

The committee on which Binev sits is extremely important.  Along with national governments and the European Commission, it will shape all the financial services legislation that the European Union intends to adopt in the wake of the global financial crisis.  People in the City of London are nervous that the EU will damage their business by clumsy or aggressive over-regulation.  But the truth is that, if they want to stop that happening, they must roll up their sleeves and get to work with Binev and his fellow committee members (who include Rachida Dati, France’s former justice minister, and Eva Joly, the Norwegian-born French anti-corruption magistrate).

A close look at the committee’s make-up reveals some interesting details.  It has 48 full members and 46 substitute members.  Among the full members, a key role will be played by MEPs from Germany, the UK, France and Spain, who account for exactly half their number (eight Germans, six Brits, six French and four Spaniards).  Sixteen other countries are represented on the committee.

But these days MEPs tend to vote more along party lines than nationality, so it is also useful to note that this committee contains 17 moderate centre-right members, 13 socialists, five centrist liberals and a sprinkling of Greens, far leftists, Eurosceptics and other oddballs - including Binev.  As in previous legislatures, the three mainstream political groups will dominate proceedings.

Crucially, the committee chairmanship will be held by Sharon Bowles, a British liberal.  It is possibly the most important committee post in the entire European Parliament.  With the right input from governments, the Commission and the financial services industry itself, her influence may go a long way to ensuring that the EU does nothing foolish, or too foolish, in the field of financial market regulation.

The EU’s corridors are notably busier today, but it’s a gloomy time for Brussels, says The Economist’s Charlemagne, with concerns over institutional uncertainty, fears of being sidelined in economic policy-making among the reasons for the grim mood.

Today the focus is on the imminent phase-out of the most power-hungry incandescent light-bulbs, which will start disappearing from the shelves tomorrow. For Howard Brandston, a lighting consultant, the decision is wrong-headed. “While energy conservation, a worthy cause, has strong advocacy in public policy, good lighting has very little,” he complains in the Wall Street Journal’s op-ed pages.

Finally, the British rebate is also back in the news. The Sunday Telegraph says the UK will lose out because a full review of EU spending - promised to Tony Blair when he gave up part of the British rebate in 2005 - will in fact not happen.

To follow up on Monday’s blog, in which I suggested it was extremely unlikely that Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini would achieve his ambition of becoming the European Union’s next foreign policy chief, the obvious question is - well, who will get the job?

Three names keep cropping up.  One is Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, a Dutchman who has served as Nato’s secretary-general since 2004 and who is about to be replaced by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former Danish prime minister.  The second is Carl Bildt, Sweden’s foreign minister, who is another ex-premier.  The third is Olli Rehn, a Finn who is the EU’s enlargement commissioner.

I should stress that, in contrast to Frattini, none of these three is shamelessly promoting himself for the job, which Spain’s Javier Solana has held since 1999.  In fact, Bildt told a group of Brussels-based reporters visiting Stockholm last week that he didn’t want it.  This was no doubt very sensible.  It is a sad but undeniable fact that Bildt, highly experienced and intellectually brilliant though he may be, has a few too many critics and enemies for his own good.

France and Germany think he is sometimes too outspoken about Russia (after he compared Russia’s actions in Georgia last year to Nazi tactics in the 1930s, what Russia thinks of Bildt must be close to unprintable).  The Greek Cypriot-controlled government of Cyprus doesn’t care for Bildt because of his sympathy towards Turkey’s EU membership bid.  The fact that a Dane is about to get the top Nato job means that there will be less enthusiasm in EU capitals for putting a fellow Scandinavian in the EU’s most prestigious foreign policy post.  All in all, I wouldn’t buy Bildts.

Rehn is less controversial and, for that reason, a credible compromise candidate.  Like Bildt, however, he is from the Nordic area - and other EU countries may think that, with Rasmussen at Nato, that’s enough from that corner of Europe for the moment.  In addition, five years as EU enlargement commissioner may not look quite convincing enough on his CV.  My heart says “Buy Rehns” but my head says “Don’t”.

Then there is De Hoop Scheffer.  He has done a competent job at Nato, but it is murmured in Brussels that he lacks the ideas and imagination needed to make a success of the EU’s common foreign policy - often more common on paper than it is in reality.  On the other hand, the EU’s larger countries - France, Germany and the UK - would surely prefer someone who doesn’t cause them trouble.  Let’s put it this way: I’m not buying De Hoop Scheffers today, but I may dip in my wallet later.

There are two ways of looking at the imminent appointment of Jerzy Buzek, a former Polish prime minister, as the next president of the European Parliament.  The first way is to applaud Europe’s politicians for doing the right thing and giving one of the European Union’s top jobs to a man from one of the 10 former communist countries in central and eastern Europe that joined the EU in 2004-2007.  This is the highest honour yet accorded to a public figure from one of the EU’s new member-states.  Poles are justifiably proud.

The second way, however, is to be honest and recognise that the job of parliament president is about the lowest-ranking position someone could be given without its looking like an insult.  Buzek, who belongs to the legislature’s main centre-right group, won’t even hold the job for the assembly’s full five-year term: under a deal with the socialists, he will step down after two and a half years and hand over the reins to a socialist.  The fact is that, by giving this post to Buzek, older and bigger member-states in western Europe are making sure that they will get all the really big jobs when they come up for grabs later this year.

These are the European Commission presidency (already earmarked for Portugal’s José Manuel Barroso, though his reappointment to a second term is running into a few embarrassing difficulties); other top Commission portfolios, such as those covering competition, the internal market and trade; the job of EU foreign policy high representative (shortly to be vacated by Spain’s Javier Solana); and the full-time presidency of the European Council, which represents national governments.  The latter job will be created only if the EU’s Lisbon treaty is ratified by all member-states.  But assuming that it comes into existence, I will eat mon chapeau if it doesn’t go to a western European.

There is an interesting side story to all this.  Buzek’s appointment became a certainty after Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister, withdrew his candidate, Mario Mauro.  Naturally, Italy wants compensation.  Berlusconi would probably be interested in one of the big Commission jobs for Italy, but Franco Frattini, his foreign minister, has other ideas.  He would like to replace Solana as EU foreign policy chief.

The reaction in certain other EU member-states to Frattini’s ambitions is, to put it mildly, one of incredulity.  No one has forgotten Frattini’s most recent diplomatic coup - a planned visit to Iran in May that went spectacularly wrong.  Frattini had to cancel his trip at the last minute when President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad insisted on meeting him in a city where the Iranians had just announced the successful launch of a medium-range missile capable of hitting Israel.  The visit would in any case have broken the EU’s policy of avoiding high-level contacts with Iran because of its nuclear programme.

So, it’s yes to Buzek - but no, grazie to Frattini.