Poland seeking key EU economic post

(BRUSSELS) - Poland, the biggest hitter among the EU's 2004 intake, put its hat in the ring Tuesday for a plum economic post in the next European Commission.

"We intend to ask for an important economic post," Poland's European Affairs Minister Mikolaj Dowgielewicz said in Brussels.

Their candidate is current Euro MP and budgetary specialist Janusz Lewandowski but Dowgielewicz did not say precisely which job Warsaw would prefer to secure.

However according to Polish press reports Warsaw wants the industry portfolio, when the EU executive is announced late this year.

The current industry commissioner, Germany's Guenter Verheugen, has said he will stand down when the mandate of the current commission expires at the end of October.

The Polish minister said conservative Lewandowski, who is vice-chair of the EU parliament's budget committee, would be nominated as his country's EU commissioner.

At the moment Poland's commissioner is Danuta Huebner, who is in charge of the regional aid dossier.

She won a place in the European parliament at elections this month.

In vying for an economic post, Poland will be going up against contenders from Europe's premier league.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said her country, Europe's industrial powerhouse, wants to keep the industry portfolio.

France has not specified what role it will seek but, according to diplomats, Paris has its eye on the internal market portfolio which notably supervises the financial sector, considered a priority by President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The 27 EU nations get to choose who will be their European Commissioner but it is up to the head of the executive to hand out the portfolios, after the usual political horse-trading.

Current commission head, Portuguese Jose Manuel Barroso, is odds-on favourite to win a second five-year term. There is no viable alternative.

EU leaders are expected to support him in principle, but not formally, at a European summit in Brussels on Thursday.

Barroso would then have to wait for the outcome of a second Irish referendum on the EU's reforming Lisbon Treaty, in September or October, before finally receiving his prize.

Some nations, including France and Germany, are suspected of wanting to keep the pressure on Barroso as a lever for obtaining the most interesting jobs in his future team.

"I can't believe that President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chancellor Angela Merkel would use such strategies," Poland's Dowgielewicz said ironically on Tuesday.

Warsaw will also be championing former prime minister Jerzy Buzek to become president of the new European parliament in the wake of elections this month.

Dowgielewicz called for a "regional balance" in the European nominations, 20 years after the fall of communism in eastern Europe.