Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, the British, German and French leaders, will meet on the margins of a European Union summit on Thursday for discussions that will be sifted for clues on who they would prefer as the bloc’s first full-time president and new foreign policy supremo.
No announcements are expected at the summit, and the formal selection process is likely to be put off for a special meeting of the EU’s 27 national leaders, perhaps in the second half of next month after the Czech Republic has completed ratification of the bloc’s Lisbon treaty.
