There’s a sense of intrigue developing in Brussels and Berlin as the time rapidly approaches for the appointment of the two senior EU posts that the Lisbon Treaty, upon its ratification, will create—the EU president and the EU foreign minister.

Ratification of the Lisbon Treaty/EU constitution will now probably be held up till some days after this week’s EU summit. This is due to both the pending decision from the Czech Constitutional Court as to its legitimacy under Czech law, and to an agreement on the wording of an opt-out of the human rights clause being agreed on behalf also of the Czech Republic.

Two names are circulating behind closed doors in Brussels/Berlin as EU elites mull the appointment to the newly created top EU jobs: that of Joschka Fischer, former German foreign minister in the Schröder government, and Jean-Claude Juncker, president of Luxembourg.

Given the ongoing project of the German elites in the creation of an energy cartel between Germany and Russia, Fischer may well prove to be too important in his present role to move from that position at this juncture. He and his former boss, Gerhard Schröder, who holds a senior post with Russian energy giant Gazprom, form a tight-knit cabal with the Russian president as they work together to dominate the production, transfer and delivery of Russian and Caspian energy to the European market.

However, Fischer—Germany’s most popular politician during his time in office—given his deep involvement in the Middle East peace process in particular, and his willingness to support German and EU troops being drafted to combat zones, may well yet be a hot prospect for the EU foreign ministry post.

As to Jean-Claude Juncker, he presents a very interesting prospect for the EU presidency in particular.

At 54 years of age, serving his second term as Luxembourg’s prime minister, Juncker is known as “Mr. Euro” for his contribution to the strengthening of the economic power of the European Union. In particular he was one of the main drafters of the Maastricht Treaty which established the European Monetary Union preparing the way for the introduction of the EU’s own means of exchange, the euro. In 1992 Juncker subsequently became a signatory to that treaty.

A committed conservative Roman Catholic, member of his country’s Christian Social Party, Juncker is currently serving as prime minister, minister of state and minister of finance in the Luxembourg government.

But it is in the posts that he holds in other areas that Juncker could uniquely qualify for prime consideration as the EU’s first president in a time of unprecedented global economic and financial upheaval.

Juncker was elected in 2005 as the first permanent president of the Eurogroup. This group comprises the ministers of finance of all eurozone member states. Following a term as governor of the World Bank from 1989 to 1995, Juncker then accepted the dual tasks of governor of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and governor of the International Monetary Fund.

Recognizing the power of influence and control over the development of their grand design for a united Europe that is wielded behind the scenes by the dominant Germanic-Catholic financiers, merchants and bankers (the biblical “great men of the earth”—Revelation 18:23), by virtue of his impeccable credentials Jean-Claude Juncker would appear to be in a prime position to be first to fill the senior EU post of president of the European Union. With the global economy dominating international politics, and the Catholic central bankers of Europe set on a course to regulate the global economy, the present climate in international relations would also seem to lend itself to the first appointee to the EU presidency being a politician deeply enmeshed and significantly influential in the upper echelons of the cabal seeking to capture global financial and economic regulation.

General opinion has it that the strength of the EU presidential office will depend on the strength of the first individual to fulfill that role. Juncker has a reputation for being not only a consummate diplomat in international relations but also an unbending autocrat in the daily administration of his duties of office. Significantly, he stated in an interview with the French daily Le Monde, that “If I were called upon, I would have no reason to refuse … on condition that there are ambitious ideas for the post” (October 28).