Commission President Jacques Santer has just passed the halfway mark of his five-year term, so Brussels is already fizzing with rumours about his likely successor. The rules of the game are simple: Santer comes from little Luxembourg, so it should now be someone from a big country. France is out because it had two-term Delors. Germany is a possible, but Helmut’s scorched-earth way with rising political stars has left no obvious candidate. Martin Bangemann, Germany’s heavyweight commissioner, is too fond of his yacht. Some outside money is going on his compatriot, Monika Wulf-Mathies, partly because of her sex. But the Club Med are baying that it is their turn, so forget any Brit. Pending a happy end to inquiries into the secret war against the Basque ETA terrorists, Spain’s former prime minister Felipe G?nzalez is available. So is his countryman Javier Solana, who has impressed that part of Brussels with real firepower in his stint as Nato secretary-general. But the Italians-who field the most impressive team of commissioners by far, with the pint-sized publicist Emma Bonino and the deceptively professorial Mario Monti-are emerging as the ones to watch. But there is only one job, and they could cancel out each other’s campaigns-leaving the way open for Italy’s current premier Romano Prodi.
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some very smart money is looking even further ahead, forecasting that Prodi will get one turn, and then be replaced by Erkki Liikanen, the rising star of the commission. A jazz-loving wine buff and marathon runner, Liikanen comes from a small country (Finland), and is that usefully adaptable political animal: a very moderate social democrat who can pass for a Blairite in the long Lapland night. He would be the first president from the Nordics-and after the Club Med, it will be their turn. You read it here first.
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