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.

It seems light years ago now, but I once had a delightful Swedish friend whose father, reflecting on his distinguished career in public service, told her that the proudest moment of his life was when Sweden switched from driving on the left side of the road to the right and there were no serious traffic accidents.

That was in 1967, and there’s no denying it - it’s damned impressive.  Imagine if they tried to introduce a change like that today in Britain, or in other countries that still drive on the left such as India, Japan, Pakistan or South Africa.  It would make the chaos on the opening day of Heathrow airport’s Terminal 5 look like a spot of trouble with the signalling on a model train set.

Walking around Stockholm in the extraordinarily warm weather that the Swedish capital is enjoying at the moment, I can see why a Swede would take such pleasure in his nation’s expertise in redirecting traffic flows.  The city functions so smoothly that it’s a matter of personal honour to help keep it that way.  Anything out of the ordinary, like a car going the wrong way up a street, would seem utterly subversive of the social order.

But you know, Europe’s diversity is something to celebrate.  I once had lunch in Rome with the chief executive of one of Italy’s leading state-owned companies.  He offered to give me a ride back to my office through the centro storico in his chauffeur-driven car.  The chauffeur decided to take a short cut and drove the wrong way up a one-way street.  At the end of the street were some concrete pillars blocking his way.  Before he could reverse the car, some delivery vans parked behind him.  He was totally and utterly stuck, and no one had the slightest intention of extracting him from his predicament.

Now, tell me, would that happen in Sweden?

Sweden’s European Union presidency hasn’t even started yet, but people in Brussels are already saying that the Swedish presidency website is the most impressive that any EU country has so far come up with.  Its homepage is clean, simple and intelligently presented, and the entire site is nice and easy to navigate.

I particularly like the section “The EU in our daily lives”, which is a slideshow of 15 photographs that attempt to explain how EU laws and activities shape so much of everyday European life.  It kicks off with a snapshot of a rather lugubrious-looking dog and the caption: “Dogs and cats travelling within the EU must have their own pet passports.”

Then we get an abrupt introduction to some of the grimmer realities of modern Europe.  “Custody disputes between parents from different EU countries must be settled in the child’s home country,” warns the caption to Snapshot Number 2.  “Abused women can receive help from women’s shelters, funded by the EU,” declares the caption to Snapshot Number 5.

A lighter note is struck with Snapshot Number 9 - “Chocolates must consist of one-quarter pure chocolate” - and consumer-friendly policies are highlighted in Snapshot Number 13 - “The EU has set a cap on mobile phone rates when travelling abroad”.

But without doubt my favourite picture is the initially mystifying Snapshot Number 7, which depicts a black-eared sheep with something yellow stuck on its right ear.  Underneath we read: “Gute sheep (gutefår) graze on Gotland thanks to EU funding for farmers.”

Gute sheep are a breed of horned sheep native to Gotland, the largest island in the Baltic sea, just off Sweden’s south-east coast.  They were once in danger of extinction but now, supported by groups such as the Gute Sheep Society of Sweden, and backed by EU funds, they are well protected.

But what’s the subtle message here?  That the Common Agricultural Policy isn’t such a waste of money, after all?

Is José Manuel Barroso’s reappointment as European Commission president in trouble?  Probably not.  But the jury is still out on whether he will secure formal approval from the European Parliament as early as mid-July.  If he does not, it will be difficult to dispel the clouds of doubt that will linger over his future for two months or more.

Such uncertainty is hardly what the European Union needs at a moment when its banking system faces hundreds of billions of euros in losses this year and next, and when Germany and France, the eurozone’s two biggest economies, appear utterly at odds over when and how to rebalance their public finances.

The EU’s 27 national leaders decided unanimously at a Brussels summit last week to support Barroso’s reappointment.  It was not a legally binding decision.  They could, in theory, change it if there were massive resistance in the European Parliament.

But that’s certainly not Plan A.  Leaders such as Fredrik Reinfeldt of Sweden, which is about to assume the EU’s rotating presidency, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel want the European Parliament to hold a vote next month to confirm Barroso for a second five-year term.

Barroso’s centre-right allies, known as the EPP, are the legislature’s largest political group.  They are happy enough to hold an early vote.  But they control only 264 of the assembly’s 736 seats.  Three other groups - the socialists, centrist liberals and Greens - say they would prefer to delay the Barroso vote until September or October.

Barroso correctly sees that he must win an absolute majority - 369 votes or more - if he is not to suffer serious political injury.  If we assume that he will pick up every single EPP vote, where is he going to get the other 105 votes from?  He knows it would be fatal to turn for backing to the far-right, nationalist and anti-EU fringe elements in the legislature.

Barroso can probably count on three sources of support.  First, there is the new conservative, “anti-federalist” group led by the UK Tories.  It has 55 members (or even, as of Tuesday, 56 - a politician from Lithuania’s Polish minority appears interested in joining).  Secondly, up to half of the 80-strong liberal group in the European Parliament can surely be coaxed into supporting Barroso.  Finally, there are even some socialists - especially in Barroso’s native Portugal as well as Spain and the UK - who are inclined to back him.  All told, that should see Barroso over the 369-vote mark.

But this is not the whole story, because even some of these parliamentarians may object to holding the vote in mid-July.  In the end, this whole saga is less about Barroso’s leadership qualities than it is about the European Parliament’s desire to assert itself as one of the EU’s most powerful institutions.

“Brussels 2009″ doesn’t have quite the ring of 1641 in the English House of Commons, or 1789 in Versailles.  But the situation contains some interesting dramatic potential, that’s for sure.

Just as sunny weather has come to Brussels for the first time this year, so have the first signs that the European Union is weaning itself off its addiction to ever more frequent summits. True, today’s G20 event in London is the mother of all summits, and there are plenty of Europeans at it (too many, some non-Europeans might say).

But other planned summits are being downgraded or won’t be particularly grand occasions. Back in February Mirek Topolanek, the recently deposed Czech premier, announced he intended to hold two emergency anti-recession summits - one to uphold the EU’s free trade and single market principles against the threats of protectionism and economic nationalism, and the other on employment. The first meeting took place in Brussels on March 1 and didn’t get good reviews from summit critics in the European media.

Perhaps that’s why the employment summit, which is due to be held in Prague next month, will be a much scaled-down event - heads of state and government won’t attend. Topolanek’s status as a lame-duck leader who lashes out undiplomatically at US economic policies doesn’t help, either.

Meanwhile, there are doubts about another summit pencilled in for Prague on May 7 to launch the Eastern Partnership, an EU project to build closer ties with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Senior Czech officials have told their EU partners that the event may be held in Brussels rather than Prague. Why? No clear explanation has emerged, but again it’s probably connected to the brittle political situation in the Czech Republic since the eurosceptic President Vaclav Klaus engineered the collapse of Topolanek’s government.

Summit fever seized the EU during France’s six-month presidency from July to December last year. More summits were held in those six months than in any equivalent period of the EU’s history. Arguably, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was right to convene these summits, because the matters at issue - the Russia-Georgia war, the global financial crisis - were momentous indeed. But with the Czech EU presidency, one gets the impression that they felt a need to emulate Sarkozy’s hyperactivity rather than appraise the need for extra summits with a cool head.

In any event, Sweden, which will take over the EU presidency on July 1, has already made its intentions clear: there’ll be no emergency summits while Stockholm is in charge unless there is a truly compelling need.