Hurd meets an ally in Italy's Foreign Minister

BRITAIN and Italy put down a firm marker yesterday about the selection of the next president of the European Commission and the way they expect the European heads of state to set about the task after last weekend's abortive Corfu summit.

The European Union has given itself two weeks to find a candidate acceptable to all 12 members states, and Italy and Britain want the countries outside the Paris-Bonn axis to get a look-in this time.

Although Britain was alone at the summit in blocking Jean-Luc Dehaene - the candidate handpicked by Francois Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl - Italy as much as other EU countries resented being presented with a fait accompli.

Both Britain and Italy now say firmly they do not want a starry-eyed federalist as Commission president, and that the candidate should somehow reflect the outcome of the European elections and the increasing wariness with which Europeans view the zeal and intrusiveness of Brussels bureaucrats.

The new Italian Foreign Minister, Antonio Martino, and the Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, made it clear that there was no question of another candidate handpicked by Paris and Bonn being bulldozed through. An agreed candidate would have to meet certain 'criteria', they said at a joint press conference outside 10 Downing Street yesterday. Mr Hurd said that there were now 'six or seven' candidates being considered for the post, all of whom were 'broadly acceptable' to Britain.

No names were mentioned, but it was clear that the Italian and British governments are sticking together as round two of the selection process opens and that they have a common vision of the sort of person they would like to see in the job.

'A European identity is needed, but it should not be someone with a centralistic, bureaucratic vision of Europe,' said Mr Martino, who, as a founder-member of the Bruges group is the first Italian foreign minister to be an avowed Eurosceptic.

The warmth between the two foreign ministers was unmistakable as they fielded questions from the press. It was announced that a joint initiative, begun under the last Italian government, to intensify the links with the Eastern European countries on the waiting-list to join the EU would continue. It was a signal to France that the first stages of enlargement could begin right away.