Cox ‘up for challenge’ of being Commission president

By Martin Banks

Date: 11/03/04

PAT Cox this week signaled he would be "up for" the plum job of president of the European Commission.

The European Parliament president has been touted as a possible dark horse in the race to succeed Romano Prodi when the Italian's term in office ends in November. Until now Cox has refused to be drawn on his possible candidature. But he appeared to put himself in the frame for the post when, speaking in Strasbourg, he told European Voice: "The post of Commission president is a great challenge and any politician worth his salt would be up for a challenge like that."

The "Cox for president" bandwagon gathered momentum, with Enrique Barón Crespo, leader of the Socialist group in Parliament, saying the Irishman would make a "brilliant" Commission president.

"He's been a very good president of the Parliament so why not president of the Commission?" he said.

Liberal group leader Graham Watson says that Cox is the leading candidate for the job along with Belgian premier Guy Verhoftstadt and Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen - both fellow Liberals.

Even Hans-Gert Pöttering, leader of the Parliament's biggest political group the European People's Party (EPP-ED), was singing Cox's praises, saying he held him in "very high esteem".

"But I still believe the Commission president should come from the political "family", which has a majority after the European elections."

He said the EPP-ED would favour Jean-Claude Juncker, the long-serving premier of Luxembourg, former Belgian premier Jean-Luc Dehaene or Commission Vice-President Loyola de Palacio.

Other widely-touted candidates include António Vitorino, the justice and home affairs commissioner, former Finnish premier Paavo Lipponen and Costas Simitis, the outgoing prime minister of Greece.

Strasbourg was bristling with gossip this week about who would get the top job in Brussels.

One senior MEP, who did not wish to be named, said: "I suspect the real winner has not yet fully emerged."

Article considers whether Pat Cox, President of the European Parliament, will run for the job of European Commission President when Romano Prodi's term comes to an end in November 2004.