British press casts doubt on Blair's EU presidency merits

(LONDON) - Britain's newspapers are busy dissecting whether former prime minister Tony Blair would be the right man to become the first EU president, with many saying the war in Iraq had blotted his CV.

Blair has not declared himself in the running.

However, some European Union leaders are openly thrashing out the merits of a Blair candidacy and the British Labour government says its former leader would enjoy London's full support.

The Independent said in its editorial Monday that Blair, prime minister from 1997 to 2007, "would be the wrong person to represent the EU".

"Superficially, it might seem an attractive option... Blair's worldwide recognition would raise Europe's profile on the global map," said the daily.

However, "the EU's first president needs to command a consensus."

The war in Iraq and Blair's closeness to former US president George W. Bush made him "a highly divisive figure in his home country and abroad".

The Independent said that "even without Iraq, Mr Blair's qualifications look shaky", asking if it would be right for the EU's first president to come from a member state that did not sign up to the euro currency or the Schengen open borders agreement.

The Guardian took an even tougher line Tuesday.

Though it listed Blair's merits as his stature, charm, experience and steeliness, it said he made a "cold calculation" to join the 2003 invasion of Iraq and "might have got away with it" if weapons of mass destruction had indeed been found.

"Should the EU -- already beset by a democratic deficit -- be represented by a man who has thus far failed to provide satisfactory answers to so many questions which bear on his trustworthiness?" asked the left-leaning daily.

"The EU needs leaders who not only believe in themselves, but in whom Europeans can believe as well... president Blair will never be that man."

The Daily Mail said Tuesday that a president Blair "would be a travesty".

The eurosceptic tabloid said Blair was guilty of failing to honour a promise he made as prime minister to hold a referendum on the EU's new institution-reforming Lisbon Treaty -- which provides for an EU president.

Henry Porter, a commentator for The Observer newspaper, wrote in the Sunday weekly that Blair would be called as a witness in the British inquiry into the war in Iraq in the coming months, which would overshadow the EU job.

"It is his judgment and his integrity that will be on trial in the first weeks of his presidency," Porter said.