Czech PM sets Sunday as deadline for parties to tap commissioner

If the chairmen of the two strongest parties, Mirek Topolanek (Civic Democrats, ODS) and Jiri Paroubek (Social Democrats, CSSD), failed to reach consensus on who the commissioner should be by then, Fischer would submit several names on Monday for the cabinet to decide on.

The media have speculated that the post of commissioner might go to some of the current ministers.

Fischer says he wants to avoid a "power" vote that would decide on the candidate between Alexandr Vondra, a former deputy PM proposed by the ODS, and Vladimir Spidla, former PM and the current Czech commissioner, proposed by the CSSD.

Fischer and the members of his caretaker cabinet are not members of any political parties, but most of them were nominated to the cabinet either by the ODS or the CSSD.

As a result, these ministers could receive instructions from these parties as to how to vote on the commissioner.

"It [such "power vote"] would be for the first time but he [Fischer] is afraid that this need not be the last time," a member of the cabinet has told CTK.

The CSSD's strategy seems to reckon with this, however.

"We're negotiating, but we are negotiating in order to persuade our counterparts. Not to give up Spidla's [nomination]," an influential CSSD politician told CTK.

Of the cabinet's 17 members, eight are nominees of the CSSD, six plus the prime minister are nominees of the ODS and two were nominated by the Greens.

The Greens prefer liberal economist Jan Svejnar, an unsuccessful candidate for Czech president in 2008, as their favourite candidate for commissioner.

The CSSD is opposed to the post of commissioner going to Vondra, while the ODS does not want the post to be kept by Spidla who it says was unimpressive in it so far.

A Topolanek-Paroubek meeting on Wednesday changed nothing about their parties' positions.

Another name that has been speculated on as a possible candidate for EU commissioner is Vladimir Dlouhy, former industry and trade minister in the right-wing governments in the 1990s.

Autor: ČTK
www.ctk.cz