Bharat Rakshak

interesting :
http://www.romani.org/

and check out their flag :
http://romani.org/local/romani_anthem.html

Could a teenage girl topple Berlusconi?

She calls him 'daddy'. He bought her a £6,000 necklace for her 18th. Silvio Berlusconi's relationship with Noemi Letizia has already seen his wife file for divorce. Now, could it cost him his grip on power?

By Peter Popham

File photo of aspiring model Noemi Letizia entering a car outside her home in a suburb of Naples

Italians are always scornful about the obsession of the "Anglo-Saxon" media with the private lives of the rich and famous, but for the past month the Italian newspapers have been preoccupied with one subject and one subject only: the relationship between Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and a young woman from Naples called Noemi Letizia.

Mr Berlusconi has been caught out telling numerous lies about the relationship and refuses to explain them. And with important elections pending, his popularity, at an all-time high only six weeks ago, may be eroding.

The media cannot be accused of muck-raking on the issue because it was Mr Berlusconi himself who drew attention to the relationship in Tuesday when he took advantage of a trip to Naples to drop in on Noemi's 18th birthday party. There he posed for photographs and presented the pretty young blonde with a gold and diamond pendant worth €6,500 (£5,700). This unremarkable event was immortalised in a short news story the next day in La Repubblica.

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And there it would have ended, except that within four days it provided Mr Berlusconi's second wife, Veronica, with the casus belli for a divorce. Her husband, she said in a press release, was "consorting with minors"; he was "not well", she was worried about him, but in the meantime, after nearly 30 years together, she was in no doubt that the marriage was over.

Suddenly that innocuous-seeming social event assumed mysterious and sinister overtones. Noemi, it was learned, called Mr Berlusconi "papi", Italian for "daddy". He seemed on remarkably familiar terms with the girl. Pushed into a corner by Veronica, who opens her mouth about once every two years but with devastating effect, Berlusconi went on Porta-a-Porta, a late-night political chat show hosted by his most unctuous TV courtier and explained that Noemi's father Elio Letizia was an old political contact from his days when he was connected to Bettino Craxi and the Socialist party: Berlusconi needed to see him on urgent European election business. But soon afterwards Bobo Craxi, son of the late Bettino, popped up and said he had never heard of Noemi's father. Likewise Mr Berlusconi's unlikely claim about "election business" failed to pan out, and some weeks later was denied by Letizia himself.

The personal was personal no more: something about that birthday party, and Mr Berlusconi's presence at it, had tipped the long-suffering Veronica over the edge. One reason for her anger, as she explained in a bitter email to the Ansa news agency, was the fact that he had failed to turn up to the coming-of-age parties of any of the their own children, "even though he was invited". But that in itself could not be la goccia che ha fatto traboccare il vaso, (or as we would say, the straw that broke the camel's back). Could Berlusconi be the lover of Noemi, and thus perhaps guilty as Veronica suggested of "consorting with minors"? Or might she be his love child? Her plump cheeks and currant eyes, not that dissimilar to the Prime Minister's, allowed the world to guess at the latter possibility. But Mr Berlusconi flatly refused to shed any light on their relationship. He insisted that he had only met her "three or four times", and always in the company of her parents.

The irony is that never before has Berlusconi showed any coyness about exposing his colourful and chaotic private life to the public gaze. He fell in love with Veronica when she appeared topless in a play called The Magnificent Cuckold in Milan, and lived in sin with her for 10 years before marrying her in a civil ceremony; their children were born before the wedding. When he went into politics in 1994 his manifesto was a bowdlerised autobiography, Una Storia Italiana, depicting himself as the Italian everyman, the bank manager's son from nowhere who had grown immensely rich through hard work, a home-loving family man in touch with his common roots. Italians in their millions swallowed it, yet no-one doubted (you just had to look at his two wives) that he had an eye for the girls.

It was after his second and much more convincing election victory in 2001 that the rumours about Berlusconi's frenetic affairs began to circulate in earnest, with talk of a beautiful young intern being taken to his Sardinian villa for the summer as his "assistant" – and the rapid promotion of others who were similarly eye-catching through the ranks of his party, Forza Italia, by way of his commercial television channels. Berlusconi the ageing roué had found the perfect way to keep his libido engaged, despite the demands of politics. And this being Italy, nobody made a fuss. Veronica had been settled in a magnificent house a few kilometres from Berlusconi's main home, Villa Arcore, north of Milan. He was obviously a bad husband, but in Italy that was nobody's business but the family's.

Yet as the editor of La Repubblica, Ezio Mauro, pointed out yesterday: "Mr Berlusconi long ago destroyed the boundaries between the public and the private." He did it when he published his manifesto. And he continued to do it in a more chaotic, impulsive way when he allowed the paparazzi to snap him hanging out with busty showgirls 50 years his junior. It was the behaviour of a sultan, a monarch or a dictator, and the way Berlusconi was pushing the envelope was an indication of how he was steadily moving in that direction. His own newspapers and television channels would never cry foul. RAI, the national broadcaster, was increasingly under his thumb. Even the independent dailies were more and more reliant on his goodwill. Berlusconi's growing recklessness about his image became a barometer of his increasing sense of personal invulnerability.

But he was reckoning without Veronica. It was in January 2007 that she first told the world that he had gone too far, granting an interview to La Repubblica (one of the few really independent dailies), in which she demanded that he apologise for saying of Mara Carfagna, a glamour model turned MP (and now a cabinet minister), "I would marry her like a shot if I wasn't married already." Meekly Berlusconi consented. But he didn't reform. He carried on just as before, until Noemi's 18th birthday rolled around and it all went horribly wrong.

Today Italy is at an impasse: La Repubblica has insistently demanded that Berlusconi come clean about Noemi, for the last two weeks publishing a list of 10 questions it wants him to answer. Berlusconi has repeatedly refused. With European elections just 10 days away, there is a real risk that his silence will injure him in polls he was expected to win with ease – particularly now that respected figures in the Catholic church like the former Archbishop of Pisa Alessandor Plotti have begun to attack him. Berlusconi has said he may make a statement to parliament in response to what he calls the "vile reports" about his relationship with Noemi.

It is symptomatic of the trivialisation of Italian politics under Berlusconi that he is now being held to account, not for corruption, or mafia connections, but because of his relationship with a teenage girl. But the fight itself is not trivial. Living in Italy now is like being trapped in a field of lava slowly but irreversibly sliding down a mountainside. Far from leading to a revitalised "Second Republic", Italy's bribery scandals of the 1990s instead ushered in the Age of Silvio and the slow, steady degradation of the nation's democratic institutions. If the Prime Minister can get away with carrying on an adulterous, semi-public love affair with a teenage girl (and then lying so brazenly about it that any fool can see he is not telling the truth) and still he is not brought to account – then the nation is in danger.

At the same time, the vote for mainstream conservative parties in several countries only held steady or even slightly fell, against a backdrop of the lowest ever turnout for a Euro-election, with just 43% bothering to vote. In many countries, large protest votes went to populist, fringe and hard-right politicians vowing to close borders, repatriate immigrants or even dismantle the European Union in its current form.

Britain elected two members of the avowedly racist British National Party and in the Netherlands, a populist party which vows to ban the Koran and close the European Parliament, picked up four seats with 17% of the vote, coming second only to the ruling conservative Christian Democrats. Far-right and anti-immigrant parties picked up seats in Austria, Denmark, Slovakia and Hungary. The hard-left picked up an extra seat in Denmark, but failed to make breakthroughs predicted in France and Germany.

vsudhir wrote:Deja vu anyone? Tough economic climes bring out the closet ozzie in a sizeble section of present gen eurogoras, apparently.

In shorthand, then, the Holocaust was, in order: Operation Reinhardt, Shoah by bullets, Auschwitz; or Poland, the Soviet Union, the rest. Of the 5.7 million or so Jews killed, roughly 3 million were pre-war Polish citizens, and another 1 million or so pre-war Soviet citizens: taken together, 70 percent of the total. (After the Polish and Soviet Jews, the next-largest groups of Jews killed were Romanian, Hungarian, and Czechoslovak. If these people are considered, the East European character of the Holocaust becomes even clearer.)

Yet even this corrected image of the Holocaust conveys an unacceptably incomplete sense of the scope of German mass killing policies in Europe. The Final Solution, as the Nazis called it, was originally only one of the exterminatory projects to be implemented after a victorious war against the Soviet Union. Had things gone the way that Hitler, Himmler, and Göring expected, German forces would have implemented a Hunger Plan in the Soviet Union in the winter of 1941–1942. As Ukrainian and south Russian agricultural products were diverted to Germany, some 30 million people in Belarus, northern Russia, and Soviet cities were to be starved to death. The Hunger Plan was only a prelude to Generalplan Ost, the colonization plan for the western Soviet Union, which foresaw the elimination of some 50 million people.

The Germans killed somewhat more than ten million civilians in the major mass killing actions, about half of them Jews, about half of them non-Jews. The Jews and the non-Jews mostly came from the same part of Europe. The project to kill all Jews was substantially realized; the project to destroy Slavic populations was only very partially implemented.

Auschwitz is only an introduction to the Holocaust, the Holocaust only a suggestion of Hitler's final aims. Grossman's novels Forever Flowing and Life and Fate daringly recount both Nazi and Soviet terror, and remind us that even a full characterization of German policies of mass killing is incomplete as a history of atrocity in mid-century Europe. It omits the state that Hitler was chiefly concerned to destroy, the other state that killed Europeans en masse in the middle of the century: the Soviet Union. In the entire Stalinist period, between 1928 and 1953, Soviet policies killed, in a conservative estimate, well over five million Europeans. Thus when one considers the total number of European civilians killed by totalitarian powers in the middle of the twentieth century, one should have in mind three groups of roughly equal size: Jews killed by Germans, non-Jews killed by Germans, and Soviet citizens killed by the Soviet state. As a general rule, the German regime killed civilians who were not German citizens, whereas the Soviet regime chiefly killed civilians who were Soviet citizens.

ramana wrote:And if we add the numbers killed by Mao in China during the Great Leap Forward and Pol Pot in Cambodia we can say Europe was possesed by Lilith while they professed Jesus.

Lalmohan wrote:last time around the irish economy was strong, this time it is weak. opinions have changed now... yes is very likely

He loathes the idea, and is right to. But Tory cuts and a row with Europe only add momentum to Scottish independence

EU draws up plans to establish itself as 'world power'

The European Union has drawn up secret plans to establish itself as a global power in its own right with the authority to sign international agreements on behalf of member states.

By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels
Published: 7:00AM BST 07 Oct 2009

According to one confidential paper, the first pilot 'embassies' are planned in New York, Kabul and Addis Ababa.

Confidential negotiations on how to implement the Lisbon Treaty have produced proposals to allow the EU to negotiate treaties and even open embassies across the world.

A letter conferring a full "legal personality" for the Union has been drafted in order for a new European diplomatic service to be recognised as fully fledged negotiators by international bodies and all non-EU countries.

Benelux countries seek to stop President Blair According to one confidential paper, the first pilot "embassies" are planned in New York, Kabul and Addis Ababa.

The move is highly symbolic in Britain as it formally scraps the "European Community", the organisation that Britons originally voted to join in the country's only referendum on Europe 34 years ago.

Mark Francois, Conservative spokesman on Europe, said that the deal showed why the British should have been given a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

"As we have long warned, the Lisbon Treaty increases the EU's power at the expense of the countries of Europe," he said. "The new power a single legal personality would give the EU is a classic example.

"It illustrates why it is wrong for Labour to try to deny the British people any say on this Treaty at all."

The decision, taken shortly before Ireland's referendum last week, will mean a new European diplomatic service with over 160 "EU representations" and ambassadors across the world.

Lorraine Mullally, the director of Open Europe, described the move as "a huge transfer of power which makes the EU look more like a country than an international agreement".

"Giving the EU legal personality means that the EU, rather than member states, will be able to sign all kinds of international agreements – on foreign policy, defence, crime and judicial issues – for the first time," she said.

She pointed out that the 1975 referendum was on joining the EC and that it is the European Communities Act that gives Brussels legislation primacy over British law.

"British voters agreed to join the European Communities, not a political union with legal personality with the power to sign all kinds of international agreements," said Miss Mullally. "No one under the age of 52 has ever had a say on this important evolution and it's about time we did."

A restricted document circulated by the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, seen by The Daily Telegraph, spells out the need for legal changes to set up a European External Service (EEAS), an EU diplomatic and foreign service with "global geographical scope".

The paper said: "The EEAS will need a legal status providing it with functional legal personality so that it has sufficient autonomy.

"This legal personality should also give it the capacity to act as necessary to carry out (its) tasks."

A British diplomat defended the decision. "The EU has been able to sign treaties for over a decade. The innovation under the Lisbon Treaty is that the European Community will cease to have legal personality. This is about simplification," she said.

Brussels ambassadors yesterday (TUES) began detailed work, in secret, to create new institutions, the EEAS, "foreign minister" and EU President, that are to be set up under the Lisbon Treaty.

Decisions "in principle" will be taken despite the fact that both Poland and the Czech Republic have not yet fully ratified the new EU Treaty.

The creation of the EEAS has sparked a bitter Brussels turf war. The European Commission could lose up to 1,424 senior staff from three departments.

Another 400 staff will be taken from the Council of the EU and an "equivalent" number will be seconded from national diplomatic services.

The EEAS will take over Commission representations – there are currently more than 160 offices around the world – and its senior diplomats will be given the same status as national ambassadors.

Frédéric Mitterrand admitted to paying for sex with 'young boys’ in Thailand
Frédéric Mitterrand, France’s culture minister, was under pressure to resign after it emerged that he had admitted to paying “young boys” for sexual acts while on holiday in Thailand.

By Henry Samuel in Paris
Published: 9:52PM BST 07 Oct 2009

Frédéric Mitterrand wrote about paying "young boys" for sex during trips abroad Photo: AP
The revelations in his 2005 autobiography “The Bad Life” have come back to haunt Mr Mitterrand after he emerged as one of the most vociferous defenders of Roman Polanski, the film director currently detained in Switzerland in connection with an outstanding conviction for unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl in the US in 1977.

In his book, Mr Mitterrand, the nephew of the late Socialist president François Mitterrand, wrote: “I got into the habit of paying for boys...All these rituals of the market for youths, the slave market excite me enormously.

“One could judge this abominable spectacle from a moral standpoint but it pleases me beyond the reasonable.”

Curiously, there was little outcry when the book was published in 2005. However, Mr Mitterrand’s tastes were brought to the fore on Monday by Marine Le Pen, daughter of the far-right National Front leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, on a political chat show.

Miss Le Pen read out a passage in which Mr Mitterrand wrote: “The profusion of very attractive and immediately available young boys puts me in a state of desire that I no longer need to hinder nor hide...as I know that I will not be refused.”

Her call for his resignation has become an internet hit.

On Tuesday, the opposition Socialists joined the chorus of outrage. Benoît Hamon, the party spokesman, said: “As a minister of culture he has drawn attention to himself by defending a film maker and he has written a book where he said he took advantage of sexual tourism. To say the least, I find it shocking.”

Mr Mitterrand responded on Tuesday by saying he was “flabbergasted”.

“If the National Front drag me through the mud then it is an honour for me.

“If a leftist politician drags me through the mud then it is a humiliation for him,” he added.

Xavier Bertrand, the head of Mr Sarkozy’s right-wing UMP party, defended Mr Mitterrand. “The Socialists are now on the same ground as the extreme right, it’s incredible. One is not obliged to use private life for political ends,” he said.

Mr Mitterrand, who joined the cabinet in June, was considered a great catch for Mr Sarkozy and proof of his “open” style of government; the minister comes from a grand Socialist family and is admired by many in the Left-wing cultural establishment. Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the first lady, was said to have had a hand in his nomination.

Politicians from across the spectrum criticised his vitriolic attack on the arrest of Mr Polanski, a French citizen who US authorities wish to extradite over his 1977 conviction. Mr Mitterrand initially described the pursuit of the director as “callous” and “absolutely horrifying”, but then toned down his criticism.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... iland.html

Blair bid for EU presidency wins support from Brown

PM backs former PM amid signals that opposition is mounting across Europe

By Nigel Morris, Tony Paterson in Berlin and Michael Day in Milan
Thursday, 29 October 2009
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has backed Tony Blair to become the first president of the European Union

Gordon Brown travels to Brussels today to press the case for Tony Blair to become the first president of the European Union, but indications from around the continent last night suggested the appetite for Blair was waning and that he might have a fight on his hands.

The Prime Minister spoke out publicly for the first time in support of his predecessor's potential candidacy on the eve of the crunch two-day EU summit. Although the topic is not on the formal agenda – because the Czechs have yet to ratify the Lisbon Treaty that creates the post – the 27 EU leaders will hold preliminary discussions over who should take the inaugural position.

"We have made it very clear that if this position is created – and the European treaty is not yet through – and if the former prime minister Tony Blair comes forward as a candidate, we will be very happy to support him," Mr Brown told Parliament yesterday.

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But much will depend on the decisions of France and Germany, the EU's traditional driving forces, whose leaders were meeting in Paris last night.

Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has refused to be drawn on the subject, either in public or in private. Aides insist she has still not made up her mind, but yesterday there were strong signals from Berlin that her new government was shifting its support away from Blair.

A senior politician from her new coalition partner, the Free Democrats, said his party wanted a candidate from a smaller country than Britain. "Europe is too dominated by the big countries. We have known Mr Blair for a long time, but there is sympathy in my party for candidates from a smaller country," said Jörg van Essen, the Free Democrats' chief whip.

That view was underscored by the veteran conservative politician Richard von Weizäcker, a former German president and close Merkel ally. Asked byDie Zeit newspaper, whether Blair would get the job, he was categorical: "It won't happen." Mr von Weizäcker said that one of the main arguments against the former British leader was the "extraordinarily intensive" support he had given George Bush over Iraq.

Blair's supporters, led by his former chief-of-staff Jonathan Powell, have been testing the temperature in European capitals to gauge his chances of success and avoid the humiliation of having his candidacy publicly vetoed.

Nicolas Sarkozy is said to believe that Blair is the most qualified candidate available, but as opposition mounts, the French President is wary of being seen on the losing side.

Yesterday, sources close to Silvio Berlusconi – who a fortnight ago penned a gushing letter of support for Blair – suggested the Italian Prime Minister might be losing the faith. "The Prime Minister still thinks Mr Blair has the right personality to be president of Europe, but there other things to consider as well," one senior Italian official told The Independent.

The Benelux nations are leading the charge for a more low-profile candidate for the post. And here at home, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have both opposed a Blair candidacy.

The ultra-Blairite former Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, has added his voice to the criticism. Writing in The Independent, Mr Clarke says: "Tony Blair's great strengths are not what the European Union most needs from this new presidential office". He believes the new president needs to focus on behind-the-scenes policy work rather than representing the EU on the international stage.

"The UK desperately needs to rebuild and repair its relationships with the EU. This means a commitment to a fresh start, not least in the minds of the British people," Mr Clarke says. "Blair's... presence would encourage the re-running of past battles rather than enabling a new approach to be fashioned."

Friend or foe? Who the rest of Europe are backing

FRANCE

President Nicolas Sarkozy has been Blair's most vocal supporter for months but his enthusiasm appears to have slackened in recent days. Officials in Paris say that Sarkozy is as keen as ever on having a charismatic and internationally respected figure in the job. He still believes that Blair is the most qualified available candidate. On the other hand, the French president is reluctant to be seen to be on the losing side, and he knows that opposition to Blair is rising within the EU. A Blair presidency would probably go down well with French people but badly with French politicians. The left has always detested the former PM, partly because of his mockery of "unreconstructed" socialism. There is also a strong current of feeling against Mr Blair on the centre right, largely because of his role in "dividing" Europe before the Iraq war in 2003.

John Lichfield

GERMANY

Senior German politicians yesterday indicated that Chancellor Angela Merkel's new government is shifting its support away from Tony Blair's candidacy. Official government sources insist Ms Merkel has still not made up her mind, although a senior politician from her new coalition partners, the Free Democrats, has said his party wants a candidate from a smaller country than Britain. Veteran conservatives are also sowing doubt. Richard von Weizsäcker, a former German president and close Merkel ally, was categorical about Blair's prospects in getting the job. "It won't happen," he told Die Zeit. One of the main arguments against Blair, he said, was the "extraordinarily intensive" support he gave George W Bush on Iraq. Germany's other reservations are about Blair's refusal to join the euro, and his decision to keep the country out of the Schengen zone.

Tony Paterson

BENELUX

The tiny Benelux trio has a barely disguised aversion to Blair, who they fear would bring superstar qualities where they are least wanted. Quite aside from having their own, low-key contenders for the post, including Luxembourg premier Jean-Claude Juncker and Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, they fear that someone from one of the larger EU nations will ride roughshod over the interests of smaller member states. Benelux is also among the best pupils in the EU class – part of both the euro and Schengen zones – and see no reason why Britain should be rewarded for its poor European credentials. In a joint memo, interpreted as the launch of an anti-Blair campaign, they insist that a president should have "demonstrated his commitment to the European project", and be someone who "listens" rather than a big talker.

Vanessa Mock

SPAIN

Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero has refrained from openly backing Blair. Instead his objective, according to government sources, is to achieve "maximum consensus" among EU members – in other words, a less controversial contender. Zapatero has made few public comments beyond a vague statement of support for someone with "leadership capability" and "pro-European conviction". But the Spanish premier is not likely to be bursting with personal enthusiasm for Blair: Zapatero was elected in 2004 on promises of withdrawing troops from Iraq – and removing Spain from the Bush-Blair axis. He is also known to think highly of Dutch PM Balkenende. As doubts surface about Blair, some Spanish analysts have begun to speculate that Felipe Gonzalez, the former socialist PM, who deepened Spanish ties with the EU, could emerge as a consensus option.

Anita Brooks

ITALY

Silvio Berlusconi was quick to back his old pal earlier this month. "Blair has everything it takes to become the first President of the European Council," he wrote in an open letter published on the front page of Il Foglio. Their friendship dates to the run-up to the Iraq war, with the Blairs enjoying holidays at Silvio's villa in Sardinia. However, yesterday sources close to Berlusconi were decidedly more non-committal, saying the Italian still thought Blair had "the right personality", but that other factors needed to be considered. That seemed to chime with comments this week from Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, who said the emergence of Balkenende and Juncker as contenders "changes the picture". And Berlusconi won't even be able to put in a personal word for his old friend, because a dose of scarlet fever means he will miss this week's EU summit.

Michael Day

EASTERN EUROPE

The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, sees Blair as the perfect candidate: charismatic, well-known globally and pro-European, but not too pro-European. In private, many other countries in the eastern European, ex-Soviet bloc of the EU take broadly the same view. They are more Atlanticist, and less federal, than the smaller countries in Western Europe. Blair was broadly helpful to them when they negotiated their EU accession and, on the Iraqi question, several were closer to the Blair, pro-US position than that of France or Germany. However, the "smaller" eastern countries are being cannily slow to reveal their hand. The position will be part of a much wider negotiation on the top jobs in Brussels. Already schooled in the "European game", they are waiting to see what might be on offer to themselves in return for a vote for Blair – or against.

John Lichfield

Blair's bid for EU presidency sinksEx-PM's chances of winning role slide as Sarkozy and Merkel fail to back him

Nicholas Watt and Ian Traynor in Brussels
The Guardian, Friday 30 October 2009

A source said Blair’s prospects were ‘fading’ after Europe’s centre-right claimed top job. Photograph: Benoit Tessier/Reuters Photograph: Benoit Tessier/Reuters

Tony Blair's hopes of becoming Europe's first sitting president were receding fast last night as Britain admitted his chances of success were "fading" after the continent's centre-right leaders made it clear one of their own must have the post.

Hours after Gordon Brown delivered his strongest statement of support for Blair – disclosing that he had spoken to him earlier this week – British sources indicated that the former prime minister was unlikely to assume the high-profile job.

"It would be right to describe Tony's chances as fading," one source said. "Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel are not terribly enthusiastic. Silvio Berlusconi remains his strongest backer."

Blair's expected failure to secure the post of president of the European Council meant that David Miliband was emerging as a serious contender to assume the new post of high representative for foreign policy. The foreign secretary insisted that he was "not available".

Miliband spoke out as British sources said it had become clear in recent days that Blair would struggle to become president. The post is likely to be filled in the next month as the Czech Republic inches closer to ratifying the Lisbon treaty after EU leaders agreed last night to include Prague in a protocol saying that the charter of fundamental rights does not create new rights.

Sarkozy, the French president, and Merkel, the German chancellor, discussed the new EU president at a dinner at the Elysée palace on Wednesday. They are understood to have agreed that the post should be filled from the main centre-right EPP grouping, which brings together the parties currently ruling most EU countries.

The French made clear in Brussels last night that Blair was losing their support. Jean-David Levitte, Sarkozy's most senior foreign affairs adviser, said: "The UK is not in the eurozone, nor in the Schengen [free travel area in the EU] and it has a number of opt outs. These are not advantageous in this search for a candidate."

Levitte indicated that Sarkozy was looking for someone who could combine the role of a chairman of meetings of EU leaders and representing the union on the world stage. "The ideal is to find a rare bird who can carry out the two functions, because we want an efficient Europe with strong institutions," he said in remarks which appeared to undermine Blair, who is seen as a world figure, not a chairman.

Brown hinted that Blair's candidacy was fading when he qualified his strong backing for his predecessor by saying that there were also other candidates for the job. "Of course it may not happen; there are other candidates as well," he said.

The prime minister's remarks came after an acrimonious meeting of European centre-left leaders. Brown was understood to have had a tense exchange with Martin Schulz, the German leader of the Socialists in the European parliament, who wants the left to assume the EU's new foreign policy post, leaving the presidency to the centre right.

Brown told the meeting: "You need to get real. This is a unique opportunity to get a progressive politician to be the president of the council."

But it soon became clear that Blair had no support on the left, let alone on the centre right. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain's centre-left prime minister, for the first time publicly queried the Blair candidacy by announcing that the centre left across the EU was more concerned with securing the other post of European foreign minister.

Zapatero, who will have to work with the new European figureheads when Spain assumes the EU's six-month rotating presidency on 1 January, said: "There is a preference for the high representative. That is rather reasonable."

Jean Asselborn, Luxembourg's foreign minister, said: "Now in the United States, Obama is the president, it is no more Mr Bush. We have a new treaty, we have to reset Europe and we need to start with some new ideas. There is and will remain a link for the next generation between Iraq, Bush and Tony Blair."

Downing Street will resist criticism that it was wrong to mount such a strong campaign in favour of Blair after it had become clear earlier this week that his chances were fading.

Brown believes it was in the national interest to argue strongly as long as there was a chance to secure such a senior post for the country.

Brown said: "His international experience is well known, his expertise on environmental, economic and security issues is well known … If you have the chance for that to happen, it is in Britain's national interest."

His comments came despite signs that Blair has little support among the British public for the EU post. Of 50 Labour backbenchers who responded to a Guardian survey, 35 said they backed the former prime minster for the role and 15 did not. A YouGov poll for the Daily Telegraph found 31% of voters support Blair for president, with 31% opposed and 38% undecided.