(BRUSSELS) - Does the European Union need a "super president" or a more modest team player? The second option is gaining favour which may be good news for candidates from smaller member states but not for Tony Blair.

The new job will be up for grabs in 2009 if the 27 EU member states can succeed this year in ratifying the Lisbon Treaty which creates it.

But already the question of what the post will entail and who should be the first incumbent are already being widely discussed in Brussels and beyond.

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France -- which will assume the EU's rotating presidency for the second half of the year when the decision should be made -- last year mooted the names of former British prime minister Blair and serving Luxembourg PM Jean-Claude Juncker.

Both men, the French leader argued in October, would be able to "give a face" to Europe and its complicated institutional set-up.

However in recent weeks several European figures, including Sarkozy, have made less encouraging noises for Blair.

Martin Schulz, leader of the Socialist group in the European parliament, said recently that Sarkozy had intimated he would prefer a candidate from an EU member state which "participates in all the EU's policies," such as adopting the euro currency and becoming part of Europe's borderless Schengen zone. Blair would be excluded on both counts.

Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht has put forward similar arguments, also suggesting that whoever secures the coveted job, which will come with a two-and-a-half year term renewable once, should not be afforded too much power.

"In my opinion, the person who will finally be designated for this task should not come from a member state that is benefiting from a structural opt out from several core European endeavours," he said in a speech this month, without naming Britain or Blair.

The holder of the post should be "only" a president of the European Council of member states and "not the president of Europe" and should preside with restraint, according to De Gucht.

Germany shares that view, which could favour Juncker -- even if he wants the post to have more teeth -- or Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, especially if the latter can persuade his voters to adopt the euro, possibly via a referendum this autumn.

Berlin also sees the existing post of European Commission president -- the head of the EU's executive arm, a post currently held by Jose Manuel Barroso -- as a heavyweight position which should retain its heft.

And it believes that the future EU president, whoever that may be, should leave some of the responsibilities to the EU's rotating presidency, which will still be passed between the member states after 2009.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who drove through a compromise to secure member states' support for the Lisbon Treaty and who, according to a recent poll, is deemed the most influential European leader, will have a strong voice in the debate.

Former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who headed the committee which drew up the ill-fated EU constitution which the Lisbon Treaty replaced, waded into the debate in a Belgian newspaper interview on Thursday, opining that Merkel herself would make a good candidate.

Some argue that before picking the candidate you have to define the job, calling for EU ambassadors first draw up a clear definition of the post to be filled.

Regardless of the remit, the eventual candidates will need to balance several variables in order to gain unanimous support -- small state/big state, western Europe/eastern Europe, conservative/socialist etc.

The situation, complicated enough, is coupled with the need to also find an EU High Representative for foreign affairs --- a strengthened version of the role currently played by Javier Solana -- which the Lisbon Treaty also introduces.

On top of that European parliamentary elections are scheduled for June 2009 after which a new EU Commission president must be found.

At the moment the only thing that seems clear is that the corridors outside the next EU summit in June will be buzzing with talk of who should put in their CV for the post of the first EU president, despite the fact that the job description has not been drawn up.

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