Irishman Peter Sutherland, a former World Trade Organisation chief, said on Tuesday he had been suggested for the job of European Commission president after EU leaders failed to agree on a candidate last week.
Sutherland, now a businessman, said during a visit to Rome he was aware that his name "was floated among others" by Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, who holds the European Union's rotating presidency.
Ahern himself said there was "no panic" to find a successor to Italian Romano Prodi, whose term expires in October, but he hoped the EU would resolve the matter by next week following a dispute that has pitted Britain against France and Germany.
"Hopefully next week we return to this issue if we have an agreed name. As you know, we do not have an agreed name yet," Ahern told a news conference during a visit to Tokyo.
An official for the Irish presidency said EU leaders would meet in Brussels on June 29 to name the next chief of the bloc's executive if the row over the post had been settled by then.
"There will be a meeting if the Taoiseach (Ahern) is confident of having a name which will command consensus," the official said. "If that condition is met the Taoiseach will host a dinner on the evening of the 29th of June."
At last week's EU summit, Britain and some others blocked France and Germany's preferred candidate, Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, disliking his federalist vision of the future EU. Paris and Berlin in turn refused British External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten.
Europe's "big three" clashed again on Monday, with Germany joining France in defying Britain by insisting the job should go to someone from a "core" EU state.
That would appear to exclude candidates from more than half of the EU - Britain, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden or any of the 10 new, mostly east European member states which joined on May 1.
But Britain said the nominee could come from anywhere in the EU - even countries outside the euro currency, the Schengen open borders area or the EU's common defence arrangements.
Sutherland, who held the powerful position of European Commissioner in charge of competition issues between 1985 and 1989, said any candidate for the job would require the full backing of all EU governments.
"Nobody would consider accepting the job as Commission president which is one of the most difficult jobs in the world without a wholehearted and consensual decision by the European Council," he said.
"We do not seem to be in a such a position but, without it, anybody like me would be very unwise to speculate about what he might do in the future. I will not do so." Sutherland, 58, is chairman of global oil company BP and investment bank Goldman Sachs International. He was the first director-general of the WTO in 1995.
Sutherland's chances of landing the job could be handicapped by the fact that, unlike other contenders, he has never run a government and has not moved in EU diplomatic circles for years.
Ireland has adopted the euro but is not part of the Schengen agreement and has opted out of the common defence policy.
Sutherland's compatriot Ahern is himself seen as a candidate to replace Prodi but the European Parliament's largest political group said on Tuesday it would not support him as he is not from that party.
"No member state or political group has nominated him," Bob Fitzhenry, spokesman of the centre-right EPP-ED, said in a telephone interview, dismissing speculation that some EU leaders are asking Ahern to put his name forward.
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