(BRUSSELS) - The European Union has agreed to change the mandate of its "anti-terror" coordinator, almost six months after the post was left vacant, the EU's Portuguese presidency announced Tuesday.

EU interior ministers, during a working dinner overnight, "agreed on the profile, the responsibilities and the mandate", for the job, Portuguese Interior Minister Rui Pereira told reporters in Brussels.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he would soon name a new person to the post, left vacant by Dutch diplomat Gijs de Vries, without elaborating.

Officials in Brussels have said that a "few" people were being considered but most of the 27 member countries would prefer a technocrat who keeps a reasonably low profile.

"It would be a senior bureaucrat who knows European issues well rather than a politician or an anti-terror specialist," one EU diplomat said.

The job would involve coordinating from Brussels the application of the EU's "anti-terror" strategy in the member countries, in working groups as well as at councils of the various EU ministers.

"We need someone who can coordinate work here, not someone to coordinate police action in the member states," one Brussels-based official said.

De Vries vacated the post for "personal reasons" in March.

He was named the EU's first-ever "counter-terrorism coordinator" in the wake of the Madrid train bombings in 2004.

As European security underwent urgent review, his brief was to ensure that member countries kept their commitment to fight cross-border crime and share "terror-related" intelligence.

Justice and Home Affairs Council (JHA)

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