British press takes aim at EU jobs 'farce,' Belgium

(LONDON) - Britain's press took aim Wednesday at the European Union's haggling over its new top jobs, calling it a "chaotic" -- and reserving particular scorn for the Belgian EU presidency frontrunner.

"Britain ruled by a Belgian? You must be joking," ran the Daily Express front page headline, referring to the small EU founder state's Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy, leading the pack ahead of an EU summit Thursday.

The comments came ahead of what could turn into a marathon EU summit starting Thursday evening in Brussels, aimed at agreeing on a new full-time EU president and a foreign affairs supremo.

The two jobs were created under the 27-bloc's Lisbon Treaty, which was finally ratified this month after years of political wrangling over how to streamline the expanding EU's decision-making process.

The Times newspaper warned that the "chaotic" process of choosing the holders of the two jobs was in "danger... of descending into farce."

On its front page it highlighted the bid by former Latvian president Vaira Vike-Freiberga for the EU presidency job, for which former British premier Tony Blair was at one stage considered a frontrunner.

The paper quoted Vike-Freiberga, the only woman in the running, as urging EU leaders to "stop working like the former Soviet Union" -- which used to include her small Baltic state in its empire.

The Guardian, under the headline "Democracy inaction: old politics mars new-look Europe's first big decision," cited senior British officials as calling the decision-making process "shambolic."

"This is the end of the Eurocracy doing it like this, electing one of their own in this manner. I don't think they'll be able to get away with this ever again," Britain's former Europe minister Denis MacShane was quoted as saying.

The Independent's correspondent said that "Europhobes and Europhiles may rarely agree, but they are conspiring -- not for the first time -- to foist a grand illusion on the European public."

Two British politicians were at one stage among those tipped for the top EU jobs -- Blair for the presidency, and Foreign Secretary David Miliband for the High Representative on foreign affairs.

But Blair has apparently been vetoed, while Miliband pulled out last week, leaving a field of candidates led by Van Rampuy for the top job, and former Italian premier Massimo d'Alema for the foreign policy post.