Source:
BBCEuropean Union leaders will gather in Brussels later to select their first full-time president and foreign affairs high representative.
Former UK prime minister Tony Blair had been an early favourite for president. But France and Germany look set to back a less prominent figure, the Belgian Prime Minister Herman van Rompuy.
They are widely expected to strive for a balance in the two posts, with one likely to be filled by a candidate from one of the bigger EU states, the other from a smaller country. Similarly, the presidency is expected to go to a centre-right politician and the post of foreign affairs chief to the centre-left.
Both jobs were created under the long-stalled Lisbon Treaty, which will come into force on 1 December, and both are meant to give the EU a stronger voice in the world.
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