EU leaders name Barroso as Commission president

European Union leaders nominated Portuguese Prime Minister, Mr Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, as the new president of the bloc's …

European Union leaders nominated Portuguese Prime Minister, Mr Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, as the new president of the bloc's executive Commission at a special summit today.

Mr Barroso, a 48-year-old conservative lawyer, will take over from Mr Romano Prodi on November 1st.

The European Parliament will have to endorse the leaders' choice in a vote on July 21st or 22nd after Mr Barroso outlines his policies.

Mr Javier Solana has been re-appointed as EU foreign policy chief, a post he has held for the last five years.

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If the EU's constitutional treaty, agreed earlier this month by the bloc's leaders, is ratified by all 25 EU member states, Mr Solana will become the EU's first Union Foreign Minister, probably from 2007.

The choice of Mr Barroso, a compromise picked after lengthy wrangling, will launch a fresh battle over the political and economic orientation of the new EU executive.

The meeting of all 25 EU heads of state and government was seen as a formality as the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, hosting the meeting as holder of the bloc's rotating presidency, had made sure he had a consensus before calling the summit.

"I'm happy to say that Prime Minister Barroso's nomination is by consensus," Mr Ahern told a news conference.

A smiling Mr Barroso had swept into the meeting saying only that he would make a statement later. Others praised his candidacy ahead of his formal nomination.

"It's a good decision for Europe, both for big and small countries," said Slovak Prime Minister Mr Mikulas Dzurinda.

Speaking earlier on Portuguese television, Mr Barroso vowed to make the EU "stronger, even more cohesive and just, and more intervening on the international scene".

German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroeder,

earlier made clear Barroso had not been his first choice, regretting Britain, Italy and others had blocked pro-integration Belgian Prime Minister Mr Guy Verhofstadt, a key Iraq war opponent, but said he would support a compromise.

The European Parliament has to endorse the leaders' choice in a vote on July 21st or 22nd after Barroso outlines his policies.

Largely unknown outside Portugal, Barroso has built a reputation as a market-oriented reformer who imposed a tough austerity cure on his country on taking office in 2002 after it breached EU deficit limits.

Among his key challenges will be to propose a more flexible revamp of the bloc's battered budget rules which are in tatters after finance ministers suspended the rulebook last year to spare Paris and Berlin sanctions over their repeated breaches.