French against front-runner Patten for top job

EU: The EU's External Relations Commissioner, Mr Chris Patten, emerged yesterday as joint front runner to succeed Mr Romano Prodi as president of the EU Commission.

But the candidacy of Mr Patten, a former junior minister in Northern Ireland, author of the Patten Report on policing there, former chairman of the Conservative Party and Britain's last governor of Hong Kong, drew a swift and chilly response from France.

Mr Patten was nominated by the European People's Party, the centre-right bloc forming the largest grouping in the European Parliament.

But President Jacques Chirac sought to dismiss him as unacceptable because the UK was not part of the euro zone or the Schengen "free movement without passports" zone - and spoke poor French.

But supporters of Mr Patten, who is 59, believe he is a good communicator and could help fight a tide of Euroscepticism, not least in the UK, and bolster the chances of a Yes vote in a British referendum on an EU constitution.

Mr Patten helped engineer Mr John Major's surprise election victory in 1992 but lost his own parliamentary seat and left for Hong Kong to apply his political skills to the delicate task of steering Britain's last major colony to Chinese rule in 1997.

Polite but tough in that job, he demonstrated scant tolerance for interference from Beijing and placed the interests of Hong Kong people first in negotiations with China.

Branded "the son of a thousand whores" by Beijing, Mr Patten recalls with glee how a visiting Chinese foreign minister once commented on a photograph of his family: "Such pretty daughters, such an ugly father."

Mr Patten turned out to be a stronger wielder of carrots than sticks as the EU's External Relations Commissioner, making the delivery of aid speedier and more efficient.

He also co-operated skilfully with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, keeping his word that there would not be "a cigarette paper's difference" in policy between them.

Last night as EU leaders broke for a pause in their negotiations over Mr Prodi's successor, Irish EU presidency sources said that despite French objections, all names remained "in the pot", as they put it.

They include - running neck and neck with Mr Patten - the Belgian Prime Minister, Mr Guy Verhofstadt, whom Mr Ahern is understood to have found commanded most support among heads of government - but insufficient to carry him over the finishing line.

Aged 51, Mr Verhofstadt is a Flemish liberal and is backed strongly by France and Germany - but not the UK which sees him as too much of a federalist and was irked by his trenchant opposition to the war in Iraq.

Mr Verhofstadt combines economic liberalism with what are seen as progressive social views.

But his advocacy of harmonising corporate tax rates and working hours across Europe would bring him into conflict with free-marketeering member-states such as Britain, Ireland, Denmark, Slovakia and the Baltic states.

In a speech to the Lisbon Council economic reform think-tank in March, Mr Verhofstadt proposed introducing minimum and maximum tax levels in the EU to fight "social dumping".

He also called for a set of regulations regarding work organisation, working time and retirement with which every company and government must comply.

Earlier this month he called for Belgium's 38-hour standard work week to be reorganised into a four-day week to cut the cost of overtime to industry.

In five years at the head of a Liberal-Socialist coalition, Mr Verhofstadt has balanced the budget, made Belgium somewhat more business-friendly and passed a raft of libertarian legislation on euthanasia, gay marriage and soft drugs.

The Luxembourg Prime Minister, Mr Jean-Claude Juncker, who is 49, would be seen as a compromise candidate between Mr Patten and Mr Verhofstadt. But Mr Juncker, who is a Christian Democrat, has sought to rule himself out.

In doing so, he has appeared more explicit than the Taoiseach, whose name continued to do the rounds in Brussels yesterday, despite his seeming rejection of the notion.

Other names believed to be in the pot include Mr Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the 51-year-old Danish Prime Minister.

A liberal, he also says he is not a candidate but he is liked by the UK and has strong support in eastern Europe.

Then there's Mr Wolfgang Schüssel, aged 59, the Austrian chancellor.

He's a Christian Democrat but would be opposed by France and Belgium because of his 2000 coalition pact with Mr Jörg Haider's hard-right anti-immigrant Freedom Party.

Other names mentioned include Mr Antonio Vitorino, EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner, Mr Solana, and Mr Pat Cox, whose acclaimed communication skills, popularity as President of the European Parliament and high standing among several of the new member-states could yet prove to be a strong hand.