British European External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten did not rule out becoming president of the EU executive when asked about a newspaper report on Saturday that he was in the running for the job.
London's Financial Times said the 62-year-old former Conservative minister, who was Britain's last colonial governor of Hong Kong, had emerged as a surprise contender to succeed Commission President Romano Prodi, whose term ends in October.
EU leaders are due to make their choice in mid-June, days after European Parliament elections. There is no obvious consensus candidate.
"No one asked me if I wanted to be a candidate for this office," the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag quoted Patten as saying. "It would probably require a lot of convincing. But if I were asked, I'd have to count to 100 before I answered."
His guarded comment contrasted with statements as recently as last week that he would leave Brussels in October to take up a position to which he was elected last year as Chancellor of Oxford University and was looking forward to writing books.
The Financial Times quoted former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who discussed Patten's prospects with British Prime Minister Tony Blair last week, as saying: "He would be a good person for the job. He has the talent, the beliefs and political position to be a good president."
Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, as holder of the rotating EU presidency, is seeking a nominee.
But Ireland's European Affairs Minister, Dick Roche, poured cold water on the idea that Patten was a serious runner.
He told Reuters that Giscard, who headed the Convention that drew up the EU's draft constitution, was just a private citizen now and said: "Mr Patten is a wonderful man, an extraordinary diplomat, but it's just another name thrown in the race."
EU officials say the next Commission chief is likely to come from the centre-right because of the informal principle of left-right rotation.
The most favoured centre-right contender, Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, appears to have ruled himself out, as has liberal Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
Two possible Belgian candidates, liberal Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and his Christian Democratic predecessor, Jean-Luc Dehaene, are seen by several states including Britain as too federalist and too close to the EU's old Franco-German axis.
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