BRUSSELS: The struggle for power and influence in a future European Union of 25 member states turned nasty on Wednesday when proposals to create an EU “inner cabinet” presided over by a full-time president generated fierce criticism.

The proposals, tabled by the former French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing, were savaged by the European commission and prominent MEPs who accused the elder statesman of seeking to give too much power to individual governments at the expense of the EU’s traditional institutions.

They are also known to be anathema to smaller EU member states such as Belgium and Finland which fear they will be sidelined by larger countries like Britain.

The 15-nation bloc is due to expand next year and absorb 10 new (mostly east European) member states and Mr Giscard has been charged with drafting an EU constitution aimed at streamlining decision-making and redefining the balance of power so that the EU does not become too unwieldy. The constitution is due to be finished by the end of June but the drafting process has just entered its most divisive and bloody stage.

Earlier this week Mr Giscard proposed appointing a current or former head of government to the full-time post of EU president — a job that does not exist at the moment.

An EU vice president and a foreign secretary should also be appointed, he suggested, and serve in an over-arching seven-member EU cabinet or “bureau” presided over by the new EU president.

Two serving EU government leaders and two EU government ministers would complete the bureau’s elite membership.

But on Wednesday in a strongly worded statement the commission said: “The Union does not need power to be concentrated in the hands of an intergovernmental ‘bureau’.”—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.