Brussels blog (Tony Barber): To follow up on Monday's blog, in which I suggested it was extremely unlikely that the Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini, would achieve his ambition of becoming the European Union's next foreign policy chief, the obvious question is: well, who will get the job?

Three names keep cropping up. One is Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, a Dutchman who has served as Nato's secretary-general since 2004 and who is about to be replaced by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former Danish prime minister. The second is Carl Bildt, Sweden's foreign minister, who is another ex-premier. The third is Olli Rehn, a Finn who is the EU's enlargement commissioner.